WEBVTT

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I'm going to read
two more things.

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But one is a group of--

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a couple of poems.

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And a few poems from this
book called Death Tractates,

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A tractate is a--

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it's a word I stole
from the Gnostic stuff

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that I was reading
for 10 years or so.

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And tractate just means--
it's an old-fashioned word,

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meaning a tract, or an essay,
or a philosophical piece that's

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meant to be something
other than expository.

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And I thought that I would--

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I experienced a
death in the middle

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of writing Bright Existence,
of a close friend.

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And she was my, maybe, closest
mentor or spiritual mentor.

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This book is about grieving
for her, and writing,

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and about how hard
it is to write.

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And it takes place in
Berkeley in the spring,

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so the landscape is foreign
in several time and space.

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But I'll read a few of those.

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And the voice is very
interior in these poems.

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So I won't pause.

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Secret Knowledge.

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At first, I was able to
speak to her quickly just

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by closing my eyes.

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She had died in the first week
of quinces, when things put

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forth their secret knowledge.

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Fiery wind and blossoms
are allowed to live,

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and robins don't
seem all that common

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as they swing at the tops of
cypresses through new song.

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And I wanted to hear just
one voice but I heard two.

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Wanted to be one thing
but I was several.

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I called her more quickly,
told her how much I missed

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her, pausing at the
edge of the screen that

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kept me from her in all
the awkwardness of living.

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And she said it was not up
to me to live without her

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or make the voice be single.

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She said every voice
is needed, every voice

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cries out in its own way.

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