WEBVTT

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I'm going to read a
couple of love poems

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from Lights and Mysteries.

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The first one is
called "Provenance."

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If you're not familiar
with that word,

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it comes from the
art world, and it

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means, the origin of a
particular piece of art,

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and then the subsequent
history, what happened to it.

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It moved on to where, to whom.

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This is called "Provenance."

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We were talking our way through
the source of great art,

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of great lives, and suffering
seemed the least of it.

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The back road dark, half-moon
obscured by the slowest clouds.

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In the flesh of my hand lay
the knowledge of her flesh:

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it seemed both
true and beautiful,

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not all I knew on earth,
but all I needed to know.

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We walked the long slow walk
that would lead, thrillingly,

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back to each other,
and we guarded

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Van Gogh as the
religious impulse taken

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to its logical conclusion:
spirit and matter suffused:

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a still life, a landscape,
a self-portrait so

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loved he laid on the paint,
gladly possessed by what he saw,

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given to his vision,
determined to ensure it

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with the mystical
three dimensions.

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Someone who could say, I
know well enough what I want.

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I am indifferent to criticism.

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And live it so well
that many years later I

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would come to these
sunflowers the years haven't

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touched, and ache to touch
them, the everyday immortal ache

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of spirit for matter,
of matter for spirit:

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the same need between
us I came to grasp

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not only through her
hands and lips and voice

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but through her eyes: through
her unwavering vision that we

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could touch what we
loved, could hold it,

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and, beheld, it would last.

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Well, that's how
things start out,

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and this is where they get to.

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