WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.600 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.600 --> 00:00:03.090 align:middle line:84% Um, this actually, this is a new poem that 00:00:03.090 --> 00:00:10.230 align:middle line:84% comes of dealing with so much sham, so much hollowness. 00:00:10.230 --> 00:00:12.150 align:middle line:90% How do you deal with that? 00:00:12.150 --> 00:00:15.570 align:middle line:84% The public world that feels empty and hollow, 00:00:15.570 --> 00:00:21.000 align:middle line:84% and the private one in which we're losing friends. 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:25.350 align:middle line:90% Beloved irreplaceable people. 00:00:25.350 --> 00:00:30.180 align:middle line:84% What in the world to make of all that hollowness and all 00:00:30.180 --> 00:00:31.350 align:middle line:90% that loss. 00:00:31.350 --> 00:00:37.440 align:middle line:84% And then I remembered the Greek myth of Pan and Syrinx. 00:00:37.440 --> 00:00:40.230 align:middle line:90% Then the poem wrote itself. 00:00:40.230 --> 00:00:44.370 align:middle line:84% If you don't recall it, or don't know the story, 00:00:44.370 --> 00:00:52.520 align:middle line:84% briefly it goes that Pan, who is the goat footed god of nature 00:00:52.520 --> 00:00:57.800 align:middle line:84% was very hot for a nymph named Syrinx. 00:00:57.800 --> 00:01:01.430 align:middle line:84% She was desperate to escape him and then 00:01:01.430 --> 00:01:05.360 align:middle line:90% maybe she was shouting me too. 00:01:05.360 --> 00:01:08.720 align:middle line:84% She called on the river nymphs who transformed her 00:01:08.720 --> 00:01:11.660 align:middle line:90% into a bed of reeds. 00:01:11.660 --> 00:01:15.230 align:middle line:84% And it was from those reeds that Pan bound together 00:01:15.230 --> 00:01:18.830 align:middle line:84% the musical instrument we call the pan pipes, 00:01:18.830 --> 00:01:23.150 align:middle line:84% or the syrinx, which was one of the earliest woodwind 00:01:23.150 --> 00:01:24.170 align:middle line:90% instruments. 00:01:24.170 --> 00:01:28.370 align:middle line:84% The music lives on primarily in Peru. 00:01:28.370 --> 00:01:31.070 align:middle line:84% The great players of the pan pipes. 00:01:31.070 --> 00:01:35.660 align:middle line:84% And of all the songs of that region, the one 00:01:35.660 --> 00:01:42.230 align:middle line:84% that took over this poem and its pan pipes, El Condor Pasa. 00:01:42.230 --> 00:01:44.568 align:middle line:84% It's the most haunting of them all. 00:01:44.568 --> 00:01:46.610 align:middle line:84% If you don't know it, you can hear it on YouTube. 00:01:46.610 --> 00:01:49.190 align:middle line:90% 00:01:49.190 --> 00:01:53.576 align:middle line:90% "The uses of what is hollow. 00:01:53.576 --> 00:01:58.860 align:middle line:84% El Condor Pasa, do you hear that haunting sound, 00:01:58.860 --> 00:02:01.410 align:middle line:90% uncanny in its beauty? 00:02:01.410 --> 00:02:05.790 align:middle line:84% Pan pipes of Peru that mime the sound of wind, 00:02:05.790 --> 00:02:09.600 align:middle line:84% the spread of wings, the beauty of the condor high 00:02:09.600 --> 00:02:11.310 align:middle line:90% above the Andes. 00:02:11.310 --> 00:02:13.950 align:middle line:90% Glory in the past. 00:02:13.950 --> 00:02:16.830 align:middle line:84% And when Pan thought he had captured her, 00:02:16.830 --> 00:02:21.450 align:middle line:84% he held instead only the tall marsh reeds. 00:02:21.450 --> 00:02:25.020 align:middle line:90% And made of hollow loss, a song. 00:02:25.020 --> 00:02:27.750 align:middle line:84% And of the vultures circle overhead, 00:02:27.750 --> 00:02:33.330 align:middle line:84% such music that every reed could sing when given breath. 00:02:33.330 --> 00:02:37.470 align:middle line:84% Pure melody born of wind and emptiness. 00:02:37.470 --> 00:02:41.220 align:middle line:90% So piercing and so high. 00:02:41.220 --> 00:02:44.560 align:middle line:90% El Condor Pasa overhead. 00:02:44.560 --> 00:02:45.420 align:middle line:90% Look up. 00:02:45.420 --> 00:02:47.700 align:middle line:90% No, higher. 00:02:47.700 --> 00:02:49.470 align:middle line:90% Do you see him now? 00:02:49.470 --> 00:02:54.240 align:middle line:84% His wings out spread, the V that children draw when they 00:02:54.240 --> 00:02:58.260 align:middle line:90% mean bird, and far, and sky. 00:02:58.260 --> 00:03:02.760 align:middle line:84% The wonder gives the emptiness its size. 00:03:02.760 --> 00:03:06.990 align:middle line:84% In search of death on which it feeds, and as it flies, 00:03:06.990 --> 00:03:09.240 align:middle line:90% the pan pipes play. 00:03:09.240 --> 00:03:14.390 align:middle line:84% The music is so lovely it could stop the breath." 00:03:14.390 --> 00:03:15.000 align:middle line:90%