WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.050 align:middle line:90%


00:00:01.050 --> 00:00:03.570 align:middle line:90%
"Accident."

00:00:03.570 --> 00:00:08.700 align:middle line:84%
This poem has a thug in it
from history, a Nazi thug.

00:00:08.700 --> 00:00:12.690 align:middle line:84%
Also refers to a
couple of rituals,

00:00:12.690 --> 00:00:15.000 align:middle line:84%
one that happens at the
end of a Jewish wedding,

00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:17.460 align:middle line:84%
there's the smashing of glass
which always frightened me

00:00:17.460 --> 00:00:19.440 align:middle line:84%
when I was very young,
and now frightens me now

00:00:19.440 --> 00:00:20.310 align:middle line:90%
that I'm very old.

00:00:20.310 --> 00:00:22.920 align:middle line:84%
I don't understand
why it's done.

00:00:22.920 --> 00:00:25.050 align:middle line:84%
Some of you may
experience this firsthand,

00:00:25.050 --> 00:00:26.320 align:middle line:90%
it's really quite something.

00:00:26.320 --> 00:00:29.790 align:middle line:84%
And then, of course, on a
whole other serious level,

00:00:29.790 --> 00:00:31.890 align:middle line:84%
the smashing of glass
that was a night

00:00:31.890 --> 00:00:35.850 align:middle line:84%
called Crystal Night in 1938
in Germany and in Austria,

00:00:35.850 --> 00:00:39.240 align:middle line:84%
when among other things, about
a thousand synagogues' windows

00:00:39.240 --> 00:00:41.610 align:middle line:90%
were smashed.

00:00:41.610 --> 00:00:43.230 align:middle line:84%
But this begins
in my own kitchen.

00:00:43.230 --> 00:00:46.380 align:middle line:90%
"Accident."

00:00:46.380 --> 00:00:50.820 align:middle line:84%
"During the ritual of dishes,
I cut my trigger finger

00:00:50.820 --> 00:00:53.130 align:middle line:90%
breaking last night's crystal.

00:00:53.130 --> 00:00:55.470 align:middle line:84%
Needing stitches like
I dreamt I would,

00:00:55.470 --> 00:00:57.750 align:middle line:84%
as an intruder
stomping the glass

00:00:57.750 --> 00:01:01.110 align:middle line:84%
at a Jewish wedding between
the living and the dead,

00:01:01.110 --> 00:01:03.630 align:middle line:90%
as between one day and another.

00:01:03.630 --> 00:01:06.270 align:middle line:90%
Darkness crashes down.

00:01:06.270 --> 00:01:10.110 align:middle line:84%
Goebbels in disgrace over an
affair with a Czech actress

00:01:10.110 --> 00:01:14.820 align:middle line:84%
deigns to instruct police not to
interfere with rioters smashing

00:01:14.820 --> 00:01:17.220 align:middle line:90%
windows of shops and synagogues.

00:01:17.220 --> 00:01:20.670 align:middle line:84%
Goebbels, the beetle
grub, eats voraciously

00:01:20.670 --> 00:01:23.730 align:middle line:84%
before climbing into
his armored car.

00:01:23.730 --> 00:01:26.940 align:middle line:84%
The bark beetle scrapes
the inside of a pine,

00:01:26.940 --> 00:01:29.760 align:middle line:84%
until the whole
forest is ravaged.

00:01:29.760 --> 00:01:34.470 align:middle line:84%
I have no right to claim our
people's nightmare familiarity

00:01:34.470 --> 00:01:37.980 align:middle line:84%
with victims hiding in
villages along a frontier.

00:01:37.980 --> 00:01:43.440 align:middle line:84%
But I beg that if so much as one
person is made to feel shame,

00:01:43.440 --> 00:01:47.130 align:middle line:84%
with a mark passed off as
innocent as lipstick smeared

00:01:47.130 --> 00:01:51.000 align:middle line:84%
on a tumbler in a bar,
it is in fact a branding

00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:52.800 align:middle line:90%
incapable of being expunged.

00:01:52.800 --> 00:01:55.470 align:middle line:84%
Even in ignorance, one
must know the difference,

00:01:55.470 --> 00:01:59.490 align:middle line:84%
because if so much as one is
shattered by a remark, hurled

00:01:59.490 --> 00:02:01.950 align:middle line:84%
like a rock through
a window, all of us

00:02:01.950 --> 00:02:04.190 align:middle line:90%
have blood on our hands."

00:02:04.190 --> 00:02:05.000 align:middle line:90%