WEBVTT

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I didn't even hear
the introduction.

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So I don't know what to
say except thank you.

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I want to read a mixture
of prose and poems.

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And to start with some
obviously some published things

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and end up with some things
that have not been collected.

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And I want to start with a
piece of prose out of a book

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called The Miner's
Pale Children.

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It's called The Camel Moth.

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There is a moth so
small that it can

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walk through the
eye of any needle

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and look up at the
arch overhead is it

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the ceiling of an
enormous gateway.

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In this world that lives
on the fur of camels.

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It burrows into the hair at
the roots and lays its eggs.

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The larvae dig deeper into
the roots and devour them,

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and from this
nourishment each of them

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spins a length of thread,
fastens one end to itself,

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passes the other
end to a neighbor,

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and then falls asleep.

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In due course the
hairs drop out and blow

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away over the desert
bearing with them

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the dormant banqueters.

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These can survive in a
state of suspended animation

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for centuries, for millennia,
for at least as long

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as the hair of a camel
in the desert climate

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can resist the
blandishments of decay.

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When a hair beaches at last
on some appropriate shore,

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the sleepers wake and emerge
from the minute opening

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at their end.

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They come out very
slowly in single file

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linked to each other by the
silken strand which they had

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woven before they fell asleep.

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They are blind.

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They come forth in silence,
a colorless caravan

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bearing their colorless thread
as through the eye of a needle.

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They enter the Earth or any
solid object on its surface

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and stitch their way into
it farther and farther.

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The fabric of their
unseen journeys

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holds the visible
world together.

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And they move on slowly
searching, searching

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until the odor of camel hatches
them out altogether with eyes

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open on their heads and
eyes on their wings,

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and they fly off to their
next living mountain.

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They have existed far
longer than their hosts.

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In the eons before
camels came into being

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the same race of moths
lived on other species

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that have vanished
without a trace.

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And even these moths
are part of the kingdom

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and numbered among its servants.

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But a great while before
they wake in heaven

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where there is no
devouring and no change,

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the camels themselves
will have vanished

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from this world and
its riches, and will

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have emerged in the living
tapestry of paradise

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naked as their tongues.