WEBVTT

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And I'll finish with a version
of an early poem by Rilke.

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I started with the
first poem in this book.

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It's called "Apart," and the
last one's called "Fall."

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And I was recently
asked to write a note

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about this poem for an
anthology it was appearing in,

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and it had--

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I wrote it about four years ago
and corrected the proofs, just

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before 9/11, and I had
to read it in New York,

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about three weeks
after the towers fell.

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It's kind of associated
in my head with that.

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So I was trying to
find out something

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for this note for
the anthology, and I

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knew Rilke had written
it in 1902 in Paris.

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And I found out he
actually wrote it

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on the 11th of September.

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Thank you for listening.

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This is called
"Fall," after Rilke.

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"The leaves are falling,
falling from trees

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in dying gardens far above us,
as if their slow free-fall was

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the sky declining.

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And tonight, this heavy
earth is falling away

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from all the other stars,
drawing into silence.

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We are all falling now.

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My hand, my heart, stall
and drift in darkness,

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see-sawing down.

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And we still
believe there is one

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who sifts and hold the leaves,
the lives, of all those

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softly falling."

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[APPLAUSE]

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