WEBVTT

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Here's a poem called
"Robert Bly Gets Up Early."

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[LAUGHTER]

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This is a prose poem.

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It's based on a real incident
that happened some years ago.

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"Robert Bly Gets Up Early."

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"At the ticket counter
at Minneapolis airport,

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7:30 AM, standing in
line, hand on my shoulder.

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It is Robert Bly.

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Risen like a silo from
out of the dark Earth

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for one last greeting.

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He is flying to Boston
to read, flying to Boston

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with a satchel of red bees.

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I have red bees in my bag."

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I can't do that thing, you know.

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"I will have no hesitation
in releasing them

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into your unconscious.

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Robert Bly, organic foods,
white poncho, vitamin E.

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I get on my plane, sit
down with Esquire, the New

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Yorker and Greek lyric poetry.

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I reach for my
notebook to write down

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a few bad lines about Robert
Bly unexpectedly putting

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his hand on my shoulder so early
in the morning at the airport,

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when a man sits down beside me.

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It is Robert Bly.

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This plane goes to Pittsburgh,
but he has charmed his way

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harshly past the stewardesses.

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He flies simultaneously to
so many places in his head.

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Why should he not think that the
Pittsburgh plane will take him

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also to his reading in Boston?

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[LAUGHTER]

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Perhaps even directly
to the podium.

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[LAUGHTER]

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What does this manic son
of Norway want of me?

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He shoves a small blue
book into my hands.

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It is by a young
Norwegian poet who

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was traveling around the
country in a Greyhound bus

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with his girlfriend.

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Do we have money for him?

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He asks.

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His eyes crackle with
a luster of vitamin E.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Oh, Robert Bly, you
are on this Earth

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only briefly, like an
angel with a hangover.

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I see you striding, wings
folded, across the main lobby

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of the Minneapolis International
Airport, pushing a vast plow.

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From a shattered floor forms
a tide of soldier ants--

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Latvian attorneys, centurions,
phantoms, admirals, minor poets

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with half-open parachutes.

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They flow out of the airport and
into the landscape, determined

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to turn the country around.

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Oh, Robert Bly,
get off my plane.

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I have two readings of my
own to do in Pittsburgh.

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Robert Bly hurtles to gate
7A with a satchel of bees.

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He gets on his plane at last.

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He needs no charm now.

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He has a ticket.

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And deep in the poncho,
he releases a bee.

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The bee makes his way
forward into the cabin,

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crawls up onto the
pilot's shoulder,

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and croaks into his ear, 'Take
this plane to 4th century

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Tibet.'"

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[LAUGHTER]

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