WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.870 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.870 --> 00:00:03.810 align:middle line:84% High above Uni's green surrounding fields, 00:00:03.810 --> 00:00:08.160 align:middle line:84% a space once nursery, then a school room, yields 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:09.720 align:middle line:90% to second childhood. 00:00:09.720 --> 00:00:11.910 align:middle line:90% Little chair and desk are gone. 00:00:11.910 --> 00:00:17.280 align:middle line:84% Gone too the blackboards with Dantesque or Yeatsian systems. 00:00:17.280 --> 00:00:21.840 align:middle line:84% Random colored blocks spell rat or man. 00:00:21.840 --> 00:00:26.100 align:middle line:84% Above a shut toy box Robert's own full length self-portraits 00:00:26.100 --> 00:00:29.790 align:middle line:84% hung, paintbrush hovering smocked in white. 00:00:29.790 --> 00:00:31.980 align:middle line:90% A young sad clown. 00:00:31.980 --> 00:00:33.720 align:middle line:90% The room is airless. 00:00:33.720 --> 00:00:37.200 align:middle line:84% Unlit gauze, draperies, a tousled pink cord 00:00:37.200 --> 00:00:41.340 align:middle line:90% draws erect limp ghost pyramid. 00:00:41.340 --> 00:00:45.960 align:middle line:84% Within our friend lies as if sleeping, knees to chin. 00:00:45.960 --> 00:00:49.800 align:middle line:84% Then the angelic intern of his dream 00:00:49.800 --> 00:00:53.880 align:middle line:84% glides into semblance on one downward beam. 00:00:53.880 --> 00:00:55.470 align:middle line:90% Oh, babe. 00:00:55.470 --> 00:00:57.330 align:middle line:84% I, Michael, whose domain is light, 00:00:57.330 --> 00:00:59.700 align:middle line:84% bring you the first of five gifts. 00:00:59.700 --> 00:01:00.810 align:middle line:90% Sight. 00:01:00.810 --> 00:01:04.980 align:middle line:84% In either hand he bears a sparkling orb of empire, 00:01:04.980 --> 00:01:07.140 align:middle line:90% that we numbskull must absorb. 00:01:07.140 --> 00:01:09.660 align:middle line:90% Now poet, hand decor. 00:01:09.660 --> 00:01:13.920 align:middle line:84% A mirror, run, face it to your painted wall, turn on the sun. 00:01:13.920 --> 00:01:14.580 align:middle line:90% We do. 00:01:14.580 --> 00:01:16.350 align:middle line:90% The fresco springs to life. 00:01:16.350 --> 00:01:20.610 align:middle line:84% Aha, child, landscapes, sea, and sky. 00:01:20.610 --> 00:01:21.770 align:middle line:90% Are you ready? 00:01:21.770 --> 00:01:23.174 align:middle line:90% Answer. 00:01:23.174 --> 00:01:23.940 align:middle line:90% Aye. 00:01:23.940 --> 00:01:25.470 align:middle line:90% Yes, you see. 00:01:25.470 --> 00:01:26.670 align:middle line:90% Tell us. 00:01:26.670 --> 00:01:32.130 align:middle line:84% Lord, these blear eyes look past two red knobs. 00:01:32.130 --> 00:01:35.400 align:middle line:90% Your small unborn knees. 00:01:35.400 --> 00:01:36.690 align:middle line:90% Ah, Lord. 00:01:36.690 --> 00:01:39.390 align:middle line:90% Lord, not that, please. 00:01:39.390 --> 00:01:43.860 align:middle line:84% Child, look long on it, your small, vital impediment. 00:01:43.860 --> 00:01:45.340 align:middle line:90% Poor foot. 00:01:45.340 --> 00:01:46.830 align:middle line:90% Poor foot. 00:01:46.830 --> 00:01:49.980 align:middle line:90% Child, that is your upward step. 00:01:49.980 --> 00:01:56.430 align:middle line:84% Before you limped, now hobbled, you will leave next. 00:01:56.430 --> 00:02:00.940 align:middle line:84% Lord, red liquid walls a trailing cord. 00:02:00.940 --> 00:02:04.170 align:middle line:90% Child, your first cord. 00:02:04.170 --> 00:02:07.050 align:middle line:84% And all this, Lord, against the painted scene 00:02:07.050 --> 00:02:10.020 align:middle line:84% of where I am no longer and have not yet been? 00:02:10.020 --> 00:02:11.970 align:middle line:90% Yes, child. 00:02:11.970 --> 00:02:16.200 align:middle line:84% The second gift will be brought in upon the morrow by my twin. 00:02:16.200 --> 00:02:20.760 align:middle line:84% Now, blessed ones, you three may speak of mortal things. 00:02:20.760 --> 00:02:23.040 align:middle line:90% Our child can see. 00:02:23.040 --> 00:02:24.450 align:middle line:90% He goes. 00:02:24.450 --> 00:02:27.210 align:middle line:84% The nursery is once more a room, only we 00:02:27.210 --> 00:02:32.340 align:middle line:84% can't make out the portraits' eyes, and Robert again himself. 00:02:32.340 --> 00:02:37.080 align:middle line:84% Was this, we wonder, his first experience of the new womb? 00:02:37.080 --> 00:02:41.460 align:middle line:84% Or my first sense of it, this whole long time my old soul 00:02:41.460 --> 00:02:45.360 align:middle line:84% training here up to new tricks, a little unknown bard 00:02:45.360 --> 00:02:48.960 align:middle line:90% was 266 days in residence. 00:02:48.960 --> 00:02:51.090 align:middle line:90% Michael is sublime. 00:02:51.090 --> 00:02:53.160 align:middle line:84% All this, both real and imaginary, 00:02:53.160 --> 00:02:56.100 align:middle line:84% but on his first word, babe: A babe 00:02:56.100 --> 00:02:59.730 align:middle line:84% I was, floating warm and languid. 00:02:59.730 --> 00:03:02.670 align:middle line:84% Then on sight two stabbing red glows 00:03:02.670 --> 00:03:06.660 align:middle line:84% shot into my head and there before me shone your scene, 00:03:06.660 --> 00:03:10.890 align:middle line:84% and I was in that moment both unborn and born. 00:03:10.890 --> 00:03:12.510 align:middle line:90% Go on. 00:03:12.510 --> 00:03:13.560 align:middle line:90% What more? 00:03:13.560 --> 00:03:15.240 align:middle line:90% I do go on. 00:03:15.240 --> 00:03:19.740 align:middle line:84% Before next ceremonies will be sleepy. 00:03:19.740 --> 00:03:21.210 align:middle line:90% [YAWN] 00:03:21.210 --> 00:03:21.990 align:middle line:90% Poor little tyke. 00:03:21.990 --> 00:03:24.600 align:middle line:90% Yes, yes, shut those new eyes. 00:03:24.600 --> 00:03:28.620 align:middle line:90% Sirs, is Mr. Robert safe? 00:03:28.620 --> 00:03:30.270 align:middle line:90% Isn't he in their hands? 00:03:30.270 --> 00:03:35.550 align:middle line:84% He said, Uni, take me out riding later for I limp now. 00:03:35.550 --> 00:03:40.500 align:middle line:84% Sad, sad, sad, and strange how such loss turns to profit. 00:03:40.500 --> 00:03:43.650 align:middle line:90% We lost our proud ivory horn. 00:03:43.650 --> 00:03:45.540 align:middle line:90% Oh, so you had horns, then? 00:03:45.540 --> 00:03:48.840 align:middle line:84% The old ones did, twisted and long and useless. 00:03:48.840 --> 00:03:49.650 align:middle line:90% Oh? 00:03:49.650 --> 00:03:53.460 align:middle line:84% Yet legend says any spring you dipped your horn into 00:03:53.460 --> 00:03:55.260 align:middle line:90% was cleansed of venom. 00:03:55.260 --> 00:03:58.280 align:middle line:90% Well, we were of the white.