WEBVTT

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I'm going to end with
some very new poems.

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This one I wrote after
seeing the New York City

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Ballet perform Orpheus at
the Kennedy Center this year.

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It was the first time
I had seen that ballet,

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and it surprised
me in various ways.

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I've always been enamored
of the Orpheus legend.

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"Orpheus."

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"When Orpheus turned
and looked back and knew

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that genius wasn't enough, I
wonder what he regretted most--

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the failure of
will, Eurydice lost,

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or what it must mean for her to
remain a faction of darkness?

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Did he still tame animals
after that with his songs,

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or would it seem a
child's game now?

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Did he tune his
lyre to a minor key,

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the last notes falling
like darkened leaves

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to drift towards Lesbos?

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In Balanchine's
ballet, the failure

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seems Eurydice's fault who
tempted his blindfold off,

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as if the artist
must be absolved,

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as if what matters
is the body itself--

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that instrument stringed
with tendon and bone

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and making its own music."

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