WEBVTT

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Now for those of you
who are students,

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I want to read you
an exotic poem.

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It's the last poem of a land
that to you seems far away.

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It's called "Getting Old."

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And it's not brave.

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It's not brave and heroic
and adult about being old.

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And it's not peppy
like Ruth Gordon.

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[LAUGHTER]

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It gives me the willies.

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[LAUGHTER]

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That's how my mother died at 90,
and she was walking a little--

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boards over a creak, saying,
"Any place a rat can get,

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I can get."

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[LAUGHTER]

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This, in a way, like what
I tried to say about the--

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and so it's-- Ko-chan means
"little girl," which is nice.

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Japanese don't have many
diminutive affectionate terms.

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That's one of the few that
I know that they have.

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Ko means "girl."

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"Getting Old."

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I'm living all alone
up in the mountain.

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The soft wind comes sweet in
the night on the mountain.

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Invisible except
for the sound it

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makes in the big poplars
outside and the feel

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on his naked, single body,
which breathes quietly a little

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before dawn, eyes
open and in love

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with the table and chair
in the transparent dark

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and stars in the other window.

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Soon it will be time
for the first tea

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and cool pear and then the
climb 10 miles down and up

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the mountain.

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"Old and alone,"
he thinks, smiling.

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Missing her and her, and knowing
the future is shortening.

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He could hear the stream
faintly and the birds beginning,

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full of what abundance
has done to his spirit.

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Feeling around inside to
see if his heart is still,

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thank God, ambitious.

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The way old men look in
their eyes each morning

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or feel their back.

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Knowing she isn't there and how
much Michiko isn't anywhere.

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The eyes close as he
remembers seeing the big owl

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on the roof last night
for the first time

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after hearing it for months.

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Thinking how much he has
grown unsuited for love

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the size it is for him.

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"But maybe not," he says.

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And the eyes open as
he grins at the heart's

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stubborn pretending.

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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