WEBVTT

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It's called On
the Way to School.

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And it started from looking at--

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in Chicago, there are
a lot of buildings

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that have been painted.

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Flat brick high-rises have
been painted with all kinds

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of exotic facades.

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So that from a distance,
they look like Greek Roman

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Renaissance architecture.

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And they're rather
intriguing, even though you

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know that they're only painted.

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And it's a poem that in part
is about the way all art leaves

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out things.

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On the Way to School.

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Even a lover of
the bare truth must

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admit this new facade
painted on the high-rise

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is a big improvement
over the blank face.

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Pilasters and corbels freshly
applied, with a golden pediment

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and a frieze.

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They seem to float
above the bare bricks

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like a blurred dream, and
admission of how much beauty

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the bricks left out.

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Even art that remembers
to build beauty in,

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has to confine itself
to a single theme

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and exclude most of the
beautiful truths available.

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Even the epic I like to
teach each fall, where

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the great battle
is still raging.

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Every hour, more proof
of how angry Achilles is,

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his friends keep losing ground
and he still won't help.

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What Homer leaves out
to concentrate on a war

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he points to openly
and assimilates.

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It relieves him to
say the battle turns

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at the hour when the
woodcutter loads his wagon,

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and heads home.

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To compare soldiers crowding
in for a kill, to summer

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flies clustering
on a milking pail.

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When Achilles yields to Priam
and unties the corpse of Hector

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from his chariot,
he seems to guess

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that something has been left
out, in his quest for glory.

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As his quest for
glory reminds me

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what I miss to rebuff the world.

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This morning on
my way to school,

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the sun, striking the high-rise
head on, turns its painted face

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so shimmery the
illusion takes me in.

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Marble is rich in detail,
it's the real marble

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of the City Hall put up
when the romance of commerce

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and self-rule was still strong.

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Elmira and Arcade in
friendly competition

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with Troy and Ithaca.

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There were columns rising
100 feet from the forest,

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for a city that didn't
exist then and doesn't now.

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No details are
left out when Homer

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stops the fighting
for 1,000 lines

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to describe the world, crowding
the face of Achilles' shield.

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Here are the two cities in
gold relief, the wedding,

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the trial in the marketplace.

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The harvest and the
harvest festival.

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Boys and girls dance on
the polished dancing floor.

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All this Achilles
carries on his arm,

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which seems to mean he knows
when he sees that coming, what

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life includes.

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What exactly death leaves out.

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