WEBVTT

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I'll just read two more
poems, but one of them

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is kind of long.

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The good thing about it is
that when I finish the poem,

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you'll all be
fluent in Esperanto.

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I wrote this when
I was living abroad

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in a country where I
didn't speak the language

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and I didn't have any friends
so I became obsessed, naturally,

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with Esperanto.

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This is the longer one.

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"Fundamentals of Esperanto."

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One-- the grammatical
rules of this language

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can be learned in one sitting.

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Nouns have no gender
and end in "o."

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The plural terminates
in O-J, pronounced "oy,"

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and the accusative, O-N--

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plural, "oin."

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Amiko, friend.

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Amikoj, friends.

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Amikon, and Amikojn,
accusative friend and friends.

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Adjectives end in "a" and take
plural and accusative endings

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to agree with things.

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Ma Amiko is my friend.

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All verbs are regular,
and have only one form

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for each tense or mood.

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They are not altered
for person or number.

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Mi havas bonajn
amikoyn is simply

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to say I have good friends.

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Adverbs end in "e."

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La bonaj amiko estas ie.

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The good friend is here.

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Two-- a new book appears
in Esperanto every week.

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Radio stations in Europe, the
United States, China, Russia,

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and Brazil broadcast
in Esperanto,

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as does Vatican Radio.

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In 1959, UNESCO declared
the International Federation

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of Esperanto speakers to be
in accord with its mission

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and granted this body
consultative status.

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The youth branch of the
International Federation

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of Esperanto speakers,
UTA, has offices

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in 80 different countries
and organizes social events

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where young people
curious about the movement

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may dance to recordings
by Esperanto artists,

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enjoy complimentary
soft drinks, and take

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home Esperanto versions
of major literary works,

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including the Old Testament
and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

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William Shatner's first
feature-length vehicle

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was a horror film shot
entirely in Esperanto.

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Esperanto is among the
languages currently

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sailing into deep space
onboard the Voyager spacecraft.

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Three-- Esperanto is
an artificial language

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constructed in 1887 by L.L.
Zamenhof, a Polish oculist.

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I first came across
Fundamento Esperanto,

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the text which introduced
the system to the world,

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as I traveled abroad
following a somewhat

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difficult period in my life.

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It was twilight and snowing
on the railway platform

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just outside Warsaw where
I'd missed my connection.

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A man in a crumpled
tracksuit and dark glasses

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pushed a cart piled high with
ripped and weathered volumes--

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sex manuals, detective stories,
yellowing musical scores

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and outdated physics textbooks,
old copies of Life, new smut,

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an atlas translated, a grammar,
The Mirror, Soviet-bloc comics,

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a guide to the rivers
and mountains, thesauri,

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inscrutable musical scores and
mimeographed physics books,

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defective stories,
obsolete sex manuals--

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one of which caught my notice.

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Doctor Esperanto,
Zamenhof's pen name,

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translates as He Who Hopes.

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And since I had time, I
traded my used Leaves of Grass

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for a copy.

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Four-- Mi amas vin, bela amiko.

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I'm afraid I'll never
be lonely enough.

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There's a man from
Quebec in my head,

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a friend to the purple martins.

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Purple martins are the
Cadillac of swallows.

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All purple martins
are dying, or dead.

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Brain scans of
grown purple martins

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suggests these creatures
feel the same levels

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of doubt and bliss
as an eight-year-old

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girl in captivity.

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While driving home
from the brewery

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one night, this man from
Quebec heard a radio program

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about purple martins
and the next day

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he set out to build them a
house in his own backyard.

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I've never built anything,
let alone a house,

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not to mention a home
for somebody else.

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I've never unrolled a blueprint
onto a workbench, sunk a post.

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I sent the neighbor's
kid pedaling off

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to the store for a
bag full of nails.

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Never waited 10
years for a swallow.

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Never put in aluminum floors
to smooth over the waiting.

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Never piped sugar water
through colored tubes

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to each empty nest
lined with newspaper,

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shredded with
strong, tired hands.

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Never dismantled
the entire affair

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and put it back together again.

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Still no swallows.

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I never installed the big light
that stays on through the night

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to keep owls away.

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Never installed lesser lights.

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Never rested on Sunday
with a beer on the deck,

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surveying what I had done and
what yet remained to be done,

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listening to Styx
while the neighbor

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kids ran through my sprinklers.

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I've never collapsed in
abandon, never prayed.

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But enough about purple martins.

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Five-- as we speak,
Esperanto is being corrupted

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by upstart languages such
as Klingon, Interlingua,

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Java, and various
cryptophasic tongues.

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Our only hope of
reversing this trend

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is to write the Esperanto epic.

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Through its grandeur
and homegrown humility,

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it will spur men to
freeze the mutating patois

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so the children of our
children's children

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may dwell in this song and find
comfort in its true texture

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and frame.

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It's worth a try.

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As I imagine it, it ends
in the middle of things.

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Every line of the work is
a first and a last line,

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and this is the
spring of its action.

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Of course there's a journey,
and inside that journey,

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an implicit voyage
through the underworld.

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There's a bridge made of boats.

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A carp stuffed with flowers.

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A comic dispute among
sweetmeat vendors.

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A digression on shadows.

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Men clapping in fields
to scare away crows.

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An unending list of warships--

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The Unternehmen, The Impreza,
The Muyarchi, Viec Lam,

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The Przedsiebiorstwo, The
Indarka, The Enterprise,

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L'Entreprise, Entrepreno.

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One could go on but by
now, all the characters

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have turned into swallows and
bank as one flock in the sky--

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that is, all except one.

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That's how we finally learn
who the hero was all along.

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Weary and old, he sits on a
rock and watches his friends

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fly one by one straight
out of the song,

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then turns back to the journey
they all began long ago,

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keeping the river to his right.

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