WEBVTT

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"Birds at Noon."

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Before midsummer, I shake
out my pockets in the sun.

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The trees pay no attention.

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The long grass is young
green full of buttercups.

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The unknown key worn
smooth in my pocket,

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it seldom sees the
light, yet it shines.

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I reproach myself in passing
for indolence, lack of faith,

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not knowing the key.

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Leaves are shining pieces.

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When I look at them I feel
myself trying to remember,

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but we are new.

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Over the wall bird cherry trees,
plum trees with green plums,

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oaks, ivy thicket,
smell of bird cherry--

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Prunus avium.

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I can blame only
myself from my age,

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and it is too late now
to do anything about it.

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I feel responsible for
what I have forgotten.

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Meanwhile, the sound of magpies
voices of stones in a river.

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I am words that I do
not hear, but I grew up

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believing that I might.

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A photograph passes
through three lives,

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and the one in the
middle never looks at it.

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In the flowering bird cherry
trees, a flock of titmice

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have gathered for the
first time of the year

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as though it were
already August.

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For the first time,
they make sounds

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that they were born knowing.

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The swallow and the goldfinch
utter whole sentences

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of hard joy.

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How do I know?

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What is the first
thing that I remember?

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It flew away.

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Everything is flying.

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The sun is flying, and
the trees, the living

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and the dead hand in hand.

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The jay flashes through
the intricate thickets

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like part of a storm,
but without crashing

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and without turning its head.

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It shrieks for the victim so
that the victim hesitates.

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I try to imagine
the woods as they

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appear between the jay's eyes.

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The dark green woods
unfolding through the head

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of a jay at great speed
to that one syllable,

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and no choice, the needle jay.

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The nightingale comes and
sings in the shade of the bird

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cherry too deep for the jay.

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I see only the woods I can see.

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I am a foreigner, with
this key, I watch.

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The jay is preceded and
followed by a brief hush

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such as surrounds--
a wind skimming

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like a plate over the woods,
a taut invisible horizon.

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Approaching it, the messenger
jay, change, change.

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When the echo has
gone, the titmice

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speak again about August.

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White throat, black cap, wren
sing in turn in one oak tree.

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As each of them sings, a
whole branch lights up.

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The presence of singing.

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At moments, the
whole tree lights up.

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The nightingale makes
the whole tree light up

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in the middle of the day.

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Green light occurring as
a skylark makes morning.

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When the singing stops,
I go on sitting with all

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that I remember from there
and from many distances.

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And with all that
I have forgotten,

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in that grassy place and late
spring, after hearing something

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I wanted to know.

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[APPLAUSE]

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