WEBVTT

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So I'm going to
close with two poems.

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The first one is
called On Looking.

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And the last is actually a
little essay called On Seeing.

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I thought that would make
interesting bookends.

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The essay is short.

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Is it time?

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OK.

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OK.

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On looking.

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It's got an epigraph
from Roland Barthes.

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On Looking.

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In order to see
a photograph well

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it is best to look away
or close your eyes.

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What do you think, Tim?

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[LAUGHS] OK.

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One.

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A man turning his head, a
stream with rocks in it,

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pine trees grow out of a
crag, a book about x, a man

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wears a slight
smile, a palm frond,

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a museum of fading things,
the water between trees.

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Two.

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Two people might choose
to stand close together,

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one mood transferred
to another--

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a woman in white with a scarf.

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The rocks in a book
look like clouds.

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They are looking
at the same thing--

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snow boughs laden
and monochrome.

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Light travels along a forearm.

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Three.

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No sky, no sky whatsoever.

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Reflections are
smudged and vertical.

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Two people are merely
shapes, a view from a peak.

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She looks to him for a cue.

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A serious man wishes
he were elsewhere.

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She is thin.

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Her sleeve ribbed with folds.

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A shadow interacts with another.

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Four.

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The accidental is natural.

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The page is shining and full.

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Image opposite image, the
hatted man, the friendly gaze,

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a brown hand, a speckled rock.

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Where will they go?

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A person looks away.

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They are always leaving.

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Five.

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They are flickering stars
through a telescope,

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a museum of lost things.

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They are mirrors
laden and monochrome

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still unravished
smudged boughs of X--

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like beholding the
mute of a galaxy.

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It is both of them leaving.

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It is like looking at
both of them leaving.

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I should say, PS to that poem
is that my dear friend, Brian,

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and I have these little
poetry workshop days.

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And we write from prompts.

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And this was a poem that was
begun on one of those days.

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So thank you, Brian.

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