WEBVTT

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Let's read a few more.

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Am I doing all right for time?

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Yeah.

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This is-- I fear giving
too little, and even worse

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overstaying my welcome.

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This poem-- during
the pandemic, I

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took a couple of
Irish language classes

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through the Irish Arts Center
in Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan,

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and I became
completely captivated

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by a lot of their lexicon.

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And there's one--
a couple of words

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that were very exciting to me.

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One was the word for spider, but
I can't remember the Irish is,

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but it actually translates
literally into wall demon.

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That's the word.

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And then there's this
other one called a bóín dé.

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Bó is the Irish word for cow.

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You can see how this is
actually really influenced

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by the Latin-- bó is
the Irish word for cow,

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ín is a suffix
that's a diminutive,

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so it means little
cow, and dé means

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of God, so little cow of God
is the translation of bóín dé,

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but what it means
in Irish is ladybug.

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And so this is a
poem for a ladybug.

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"Bóín Dé."

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Little cow of God, the wattage
of your red reverberates

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the earth, and spots of
onyx nestle on its lacquer

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like fixed stars.

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Bravissima!

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You are red's least
loudmouth ambassador,

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paradise's minuscule half apple,
mobilized by a half dozen legs

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and under the split open
dome of you, gold leaf wings,

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folded over esoterically like
dress patterns whose thinness

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whispers to the near
devotional care called for

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to pin them out properly.

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Meanwhile, your
antennae, animate,

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demonstrate sensitivity
with a nonchalance

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that shames the bureaucrat.

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Thanks for that.

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You serve purpose in the
garden, but at the moment,

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what matters is I see you.

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Little cow of god,
who had been sleeping

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on a pompom I sewed by hand
onto a store-bought curtain

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till I jostled you awake, you
who flew to my laptop's light

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and landed on the staves of
my work surface, tell me,

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am I dying?

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Little cow, blood-drop
omen, stopped in front of me

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like a whole note
in a chorus that

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celebrates the invisible
labor of useless

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thought, you who had grown
tired, I have grown old,

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but is it over, our
irrelevant haven,

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this thimble's worth of song?

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