WEBVTT

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I'll read one more poem.

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This has been requested.

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It's called "Not Transhistorical
Death, or at Least Not Quite."

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"Jim Wright, who was a
good poet and my friend,

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died two or three years ago.

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I was told at the time
that we did not lose him.

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I was told that memories of him
would keep him in this world.

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I don't remember
who told me this,

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just that it was in the
air, like the usual fallout

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from funerals.

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I knew it was wrong.

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Now I have begun to
think how it was wrong.

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I have begun to see
that it was not only

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sentimental but simplistic.

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I have examined Jim in my mind.

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I remember him, but the
memories are as dead as he is.

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What is more important
is how I see him now.

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There.

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There in that extreme wide
place, that emptiness.

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He is near enough
to be recognizable,

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but too far away to be
reached by a cry or a gesture.

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He is wearing a light weight
brightly colored shirt.

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His trousers belong to
a suit, but the coat

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has been discarded.

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His belt is narrow and
somehow stays straightly

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on his potbelly.

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His shoes are thin and shiny.

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I think he bought those shoes
on his last journey to Europe.

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He is walking away slowly.

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He is wandering, meandering.

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Sometimes he makes
a little circle.

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Sometimes he pauses and looks
to one side or the other.

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Sometimes he looks down.

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Occasionally he looks up.

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He never looks back,
at least not directly.

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Although he recedes
very gradually

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and becomes very
gradually smaller,

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I continue to see all
the aspects of his face

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and figure clearly.

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He is thinking about
something and I know what.

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It is not the place he
now occupies in my life.

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He cannot imagine that.

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Only I can.

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He is neither what
he was, obviously,

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nor what he is, for I'm quite
sure I am inventing that.

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Is he Jim Wright?

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Is he not someone else?

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Yes, he is Jim Wright.

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No, he is not someone else.

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Who else could he possibly be?

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When I die, he will arrive
at where he is going,

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and I will set out after him."

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Thank you very much.

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[APPLAUSE]

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