WEBVTT

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And I'm going to move into a
slightly longer poem that's

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in several sections.

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And though they are not
numbered on the page,

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I will number them
to make listening

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a little more self-orienting.

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It's a poem which is called
Uprooted Olive Orchard

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and obviously
arises from concerns

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in the same part of the
world, in the Middle East.

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But it also grafts
into itself passages

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from Plato's The Republic,
the familiar myth

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of men chained in a cave,
whose only sense of reality

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is shadows on a wall.

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So that's an
epistemological myth,

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which I think has its
political equivalents,

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and particularly in
instances of conflict

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where civilians are involved
and where questions of who

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one's enemy are, become as murky
as the shadows in that cave.

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It was written partly
out of the Balkans,

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but also out of the
situation in Palestine.

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Uprooted Olive Orchard-- one--

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what does this wall mean?

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And this fence, what does
it mean in our own language?

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Please, repeat.

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Then Is it finished?

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Can you tell me what it holds?

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I do not hold.

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In truth, was there a god
for this, god of the trees?

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Am I too far ahead surviving
this way, in the single moment,

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shared god of the letting go?

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Between us and the fire,
the work, endangering.

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Two-- and madness, also frenzy,
Plato, also the corruption

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of the philosophic mind.

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Do not break crimes, and the
spirit of evil spring out

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of the very fullness of our
human condition, ruined.

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At such a time, will not a
young man's heart, as they say,

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leap within him?

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Will any private
training enable him

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to stand firm against
the overwhelming flood

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of popular opinion?

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Or will he be carried away?

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In Spring, did he not gather
stones out of the riverbed?

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In Spring, the world
not yet translation,

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first truth, second truth.

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In Spring, the injury not
yet complete, the journey

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through increasing light.

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He found his brother's body
in a trench of melting snow.

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I knew him by his t-shirt.

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I felt thankful.

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Others from our village
brought what they

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could find home in a bucket.

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Four-- I cannot remove
it, cannot move it.

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Are we all too far ahead?

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Here is the dictionary,
stone and fingers, shrapnel,

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meaning neither sea,
nor promised land.

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I might compare the words,
what they uncover, to a man

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upon a cross.

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The extra wedge of wood to keep
the feet from tearing loose

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around the nail.

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Here is a cave.

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Five-- but this is late again.

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And these, since childhood,
legs and necks chained so they

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cannot move.

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Above them and behind
them is the blazing fire.

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And Glaucon
said, strange prisoners.

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Six-- meanwhile, the small birds
carrying their song in flight.

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Meanwhile, the Finch
between the branches, new

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leaves paler, white as aluminum,
when wind lifts the veil

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and lining of the trees.

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Sound continuing.

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Seven-- suppose
further the prison

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had an echo which came
through from the other side?

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Is this the first land
purchased in another testament

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for burial, where
there are trees,

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or where they find the woman's
son bludgeoned by stones,

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so mutilated he can
be identified only

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by fingerprints, whose
handprints reddening the wall.

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Eight-- do not speak
in your cave, do not.

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You cannot remove it.

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Early May, and early Wednesday,
in a cave, in mourning,

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do not speak.

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It's dark.

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You're not seeing much
but movement, shadows.

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You can't tell if they
are women, children, men.

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You're in survival mode.

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Nine-- will he not suffer
sharp pains in the glare?

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Will he not be unable to see?

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Will he not be unable to
see the realities which

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in his former state
he'd seen as shadows?

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Will he not suffer
pain in the glare?

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Ten-- there was an orchard,
branches mangled in the tracks.

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Eleven-- because they did not
realize a woman or a child

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could be carrying the grenade.

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