WEBVTT

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First I want to read a
couple of poems about art.

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The first one is called
"Hector's Return."

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And it has to do, in part,
with the fact that, for me,

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art very often is
concerned with maintaining

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an image, a fragile
image, of the human

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in the face of all
the forces that

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wipe out images
of the human, all

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the forces of forgetfulness.

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And it seems to
me the best art--

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say, Homeric art-- is
capable of doing absolute--

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being absolutely
honest about the forces

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on the side of
destruction while somehow

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being able to lift out
of the world of time

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some permanent image.

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And a poem is based on
Hector and the Iliad,

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an Iliad which is a poem
about death and destruction

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and violence and which
somehow has lasted

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because, for some
reason, Homer has

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been able to lift that subject
out of the merely temporal.

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It also has to do a little
with Nietzsche's idea

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of the eternal return.

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He says, "The way in which you
can test whether you can really

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affirm your life is whether
you can will it or will

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to live it moment by moment
forever, again and again,

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with no changes."

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If you can will your-- that
kind of eternal return,

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then you're really
affirming your life.

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And no-- very few
people can do that.

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But in art, you do that
in an indirect way.

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That is, you read a text which
causes you a lot of anguish

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if you get involved in it
and yet you will to repeat

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the anguish year after year.

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So I'll read this poem
now, "Hector's Return."

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I'm almost ready
to read this poem.

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[LAUGHTER]

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"Hector's Return"-- "By
now, he's died so often

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and been dragged in the dirt
so many times, it's easy.

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He'd have it no other
way and chooses,

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with open eyes, to be deluded
by his will to live and press

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the attack on the ships,
to forget what he knew

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at the opening, that Troy must
burn, abandoned by its gods,

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his wife and son
doomed to be slaves,

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his name lost among strangers.

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It hurts me to see
his mistaken hope.

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So I'm glad that the
man I left last year,

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as ashes cooling
on a funeral pyre,

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has risen long enough to fight
Achilles once again and fall.

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A poem that shows the
generations of men

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as frail as the
generations of leaves, that

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makes my solid city flutter
in the wind like Troy

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and thin to shadows, is unreal
as my grandmother's village

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in Lithuania burned
down in the war.

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There is the farm she
lived on, here paved over

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for a mall years back--

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is the same poem that's watered
roses in Priam's gardens

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so they bloom still.

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I turn the page and
the trampled leaves

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float up again to the
branches and turn green.

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And it seems, for
a moment, the time

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is too weak a god to
worship, another illusion I

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can put my hand through, not
the last word, as I supposed.

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We assume
grandmother's muttering

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at the end about
waves and crossings

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to be her dream of some
longed-for, fabled after-world,

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not guessing she was a girl
again, crossing the sea to us,

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eager to rejoin the long
line on Ellis Island."

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