WEBVTT

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OK, I'll read one last poem,
and thank you all for coming.

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This poem is also
called "Corruption,"

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and it begins with a
line from Simone Weil.

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"Corruption."

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"In one of Grimm's
stories, a little tailor

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defeats a giant in
a throwing contest

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by lofting a bird in the air.

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Happily ever after arrives,
but the bird never lands.

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She flies straight
out of the tale.

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Tonight, a vessel
catapults to the heavens

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with a gold plated
phonograph fixed to its side.

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In less than 40,000
years, this craft

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will drift through the nearest
system, bearing greetings in 57

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languages, including the encoded
song of the humpback whale.

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By then, our tongue will
have crossed into extinction

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or changed utterly.

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Lately, I've taken an
interest in words, like here.

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Here was a chapel, for instance.

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Here is a footprint
filling with rain.

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Here might be enough.

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Cannot the same be
said of elsewhere?

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Yes, I suppose.

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But I know precious
little of elsewhere."

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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