WEBVTT

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The other thing that--

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do you still-- am I
talking into the mic?

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Raise your hand if I get drifty.

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So in America, the war was--

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let me skip to that poem,
the Central Park poem,

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called "Summer Movies
in Central Park."

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He had a friend who was
an anti-Stalinist Marxist

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in Paris, who he was writing
back and forth letters

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to at this time,
and Juliusz Kronski,

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philosopher, who
was saying to him,

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we don't give up on the hope
that Marx and Hegel are right,

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that all of this is
leading inevitably

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to the perfect society.

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And Czeslaw said
right back, well--

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[LAUGHTER]

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"Movies in Central Park for
Juliusz Kronski in Paris"

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In the dim light, on
the trampled grasses,

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Girls lie still
with their soldiers

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in their arms, or sailors,

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Until the image alters.

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Dark glance of a shoulder,
an unbuttoned blouse,

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Trees sprang from
the ancient bedrock,

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And the spray of
leaves fall like cords,

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Where nature becomes a theater.

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The silvery machinery
of the skyline shifts,

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The summit of the
abstract city--

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The summits of the abstract
city quiver under murky

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rainbows in the humid air.

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Honeycomb of metal
or stalactites

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divide the distance
into sheer domains.

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I have to say--

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so I was working
with David, and he

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would do a first translation.

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And I would say, I don't know
what the hell this means.

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And he would say, I don't know
what the hell it means either.

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So once you get what's
happening, there--

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so everybody's sprawled.

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The young are sprawled
on the lawn, making out.

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They're seeing a
summer night movie,

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and the flickering of
the light on the palisade

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of the high rises on
Fifth Avenue are lit up.

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When nature becomes a
theater, the silver machinery

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of the skyline shifts,

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The summits of the
abstract city quiver

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under murky rainbows
in the humid air,

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Honeycombs of metal
or stalactites

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divide the distance
into sheer domains.

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I remember a field where the
radiance of the burning city

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colored the dry wormwood,
and crickets played,

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Red from the glow, from which
an army of smoke marches.

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The water, rushing
along the road,

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flutters the dress on
the corpse of a woman,

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As the city descends long
days and nights into legend,

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which won't compensate
for its disasters.

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This memory contains a
warning for those who spend

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their nights on soft couches.

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An errant fire will often burn
right through the rosy strains

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on bedsheets.

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Whoever enters the human cosmos,
where marvels are performed,

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Should know that it delivers,
serenely, on a daily basis,

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The retributions
of malignant fate.

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They don't hear this.

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As if the fresh Earth had
brought forth the first palm

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after the flood,

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Trembling, they enter
the quiet groves of sex,

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And simply give
themselves to each other.

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And yet, even here in
the middle of Manhattan,

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I could see how,
as a warning sound,

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their faces blanch in
the glare of the screen,

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And sudden fright
weakens their legs.

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Here, in the line of
cars along Fifth Avenue,

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I see how the
ambassador's limousine

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glides past the white masts,

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On which the various
flags of fictitious colors

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sway in a mild breeze.

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The poor envoys, their
labors are great,

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As they, eyes asquint,
compose a holy covenant

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with duplicitous ink,

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Or the pact between
the Athenians

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and the Lacedaemonians.

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And what sort of power was
granted to us, Juliusz,

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When we foresaw the fate
of our native realm,

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Which was to be brought
under the militarized feet

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of foreign powers.

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We had barely mourned
in our secret hearts

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That Europe, mother
of arts and sciences,

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With its old wisdom and
bloody cobblestones,

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As we place it on the scales
opposite the new face,

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Old Europe, new Europe,

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We know that the ingenuity
of our weapons is disastrous,

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That the whirlwind
shreds banners,

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And that the heirs to the
glory of the Greek name,

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Glory, our heritage
from the Greeks,

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will last as long
as humankind lasts,

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And that this age of
darkness will pass,

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The way winters pass
when the strong sap

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rises under the brittle bark.

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The smiles of the
sophists in papal Rome

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will knock the pen from the
hand of the inquisitors,

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Just as, once upon
a time, books were

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brought from Constantinople
to the northern lands--

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So on.

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You can see he's now kicking
into some imagination

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with his friend of
how some new world is

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going to emerge out of this.

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Meanwhile, the Soviets
are taking over Poland,

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and he knows it.

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And most of the Polish
exiles in New York

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are picketing in front
of the Polish embassy

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because Poland is going
back into servitude again,

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and Czeslaw finds himself
serving this government, which

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is no longer tenable.

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And he writes a poem that
gets him in such trouble,

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that he gets recalled to Poland.

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And where his passport is
confiscated because they think

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he's politically unreliable.