WEBVTT

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I'm going to read
you some new poems.

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All of you know, except if
there's a freshman here.

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But here's for him--

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him.

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It wouldn't be a her.

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For him, I would
remind you that Icarus

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was the son who with his father
were fleeing from the island

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because the barbarians
had conquered it.

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And they were
going to be killed.

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And the father,
who was a magician,

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made them wings of wax and
feathers, and they flew away.

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Except Icarus was young
and was enjoying himself.

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And most critics
say, he was vain.

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So he flew higher and
higher, got close to the sun.

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The sun melted of--

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the wax, the wet
feathers flew off,

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and he fell into the ground.

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And ever since, it's been
tilled-- it's been the--

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example, warning you
against being extravagant,

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teaching you security.

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It's called "Failing
and Flying."

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"Everyone forgets
that Icarus also

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flew, like when love comes to
an end or the marriage fails

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and people say, they knew it
was a mistake, that everybody

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said it would never
work, that she was

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old enough not to know that.

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She was old enough
to know better.

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But anything really worth
doing is worth doing badly.

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Being there with Linda,
by the summer ocean,

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on our deserted
side of the island,

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where love was
fading out of her,

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the stars burning so
extravagantly those nights

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that anyone could tell
you they would never last.

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Every morning, she was like a
visitation, asleep in my bed.

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The gentleness in her, like
deer standing in the dawn mist.

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I watched her every
afternoon coming back

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through the hot stony
field after swimming,

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the sea light behind
her and the giant sky

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on the other side of that.

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I listened to her
while we ate lunch.

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How can they say that
that marriage failed?

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It's like the people who
came back from Provence when

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it was still the true Provence
it had been, and said,

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it was pretty, but
the food was greasy.

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I believe Icarus was not failing
as he fell, but just coming

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to the end of his triumph."

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