I took a sinus pill just before I came,
and my-- it's dried me up.
My lips are sticking to my teeth.
[LAUGHTER]
I want to read a poem that I don't usually read,
because as I was browsing through poems thinking
about what to read, it struck me how crazy the poem is just
in its persona.
It's a persona poem, spoken evidently by a group of robots.
It's called-- I think I'll find it here.
It's called "The Robots, the City of Paradise."
Just going to do an R2-D2 imitation for [INAUDIBLE]..
This the-- [COUGHS] pardon me.
The situation of the poem is one that's
fairly typical in at least early science fiction--
no more human beings left on Earth.
The robots that have been made to serve us
go on performing their own functions without us.
"Out of the knowledge you mysteriously left,
came oil, steel, art, ways to duplicate ourselves.
Year-of-Our-Makers-X, world without nations,
wherein we walk, fearless under the dead lamps,
hardly bothering to care.
Our shadows cross your dark sharp displays.
Our purposes slowly forgettable, though faithful to your plan.
Your aluminum police, our angels soar.
Everywhere the new pattern is ourselves
believing in necessity as you in our memories did not.
City of paradise, commitment to a powerful,
abandoning instruction.
We stand like citizens, like lambs
without banners under the best of our lives, liking it,
yours."