WEBVTT

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Let me read you a small
series of poems on poetry.

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This one is for
Robert Lowell, who

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passed away last year suddenly.

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"I sit here thinking
I should write

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in dread of stepping outside
the room to find nothing exists.

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Here, I can make
something exist.

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There, I find myself nonexistent
in doubt, an empty space.

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Poem in hand, I can walk
out of the room in safety.

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I tack it upon a wall.

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The emptiness gathers around
it and begins to read.

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Two.

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Where is the image
that will free me

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of the necessity of living
by taking over the hardships?

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I am asking for two lives.

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And I have only
been able to express

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the longing of this one, which
is called writing the poem.

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Three.

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My writing teaches me
how to die tomorrow

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when the weather improves
by dying with the sun,

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a law unto itself, as I am.

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There is this happiness."

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