WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.960 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.960 --> 00:00:05.760 align:middle line:84% And now I'm going to read end with two poems, that 00:00:05.760 --> 00:00:07.960 align:middle line:90% are older poems. 00:00:07.960 --> 00:00:10.100 align:middle line:84% My husband Bob, who is sitting there, 00:00:10.100 --> 00:00:14.680 align:middle line:84% who taught me why the sky is blue and stuff like that. 00:00:14.680 --> 00:00:16.860 align:middle line:84% It's nice to have science in the house, 00:00:16.860 --> 00:00:21.520 align:middle line:84% it helps keep your feet on the ground. 00:00:21.520 --> 00:00:23.980 align:middle line:84% But he said, boy, if you like songs, 00:00:23.980 --> 00:00:26.760 align:middle line:84% you want to hear the song you like again, right? 00:00:26.760 --> 00:00:29.420 align:middle line:90% Because you never. 00:00:29.420 --> 00:00:30.700 align:middle line:90% Oh, I can't read that. 00:00:30.700 --> 00:00:32.880 align:middle line:90% I read that before. 00:00:32.880 --> 00:00:39.280 align:middle line:84% OK, I am now going to read to the old songs. 00:00:39.280 --> 00:00:45.760 align:middle line:84% This one is kind of related to something 00:00:45.760 --> 00:00:51.240 align:middle line:90% Margaree said about mercy. 00:00:51.240 --> 00:00:54.760 align:middle line:84% The speaker of this poem is a wolf. 00:00:54.760 --> 00:01:00.020 align:middle line:84% No ordinary wolf, but the legendary Lupercalia wolf, 00:01:00.020 --> 00:01:04.420 align:middle line:84% who you probably know the story though, Roman myth. 00:01:04.420 --> 00:01:09.480 align:middle line:84% The wolf who suckled the cast off twins Romulus and Remus. 00:01:09.480 --> 00:01:15.660 align:middle line:84% Romulus was to be, of course, the founder of Rome. 00:01:15.660 --> 00:01:20.620 align:middle line:84% The title of this poem is a broken off sentence 00:01:20.620 --> 00:01:23.580 align:middle line:90% that the poem completes. 00:01:23.580 --> 00:01:31.260 align:middle line:84% So, being as I was, how could I help? 00:01:31.260 --> 00:01:34.340 align:middle line:90% Ellipsis. 00:01:34.340 --> 00:01:38.260 align:middle line:84% It was the noise that drew me first. 00:01:38.260 --> 00:01:41.740 align:middle line:84% Even before the scent, the long water 00:01:41.740 --> 00:01:46.700 align:middle line:84% had brought something to my den, spilling its banks, 00:01:46.700 --> 00:01:52.380 align:middle line:84% leaving the hollow pod of reeds in the cool mud. 00:01:52.380 --> 00:01:56.340 align:middle line:84% Whatever it was, it cried inside, 00:01:56.340 --> 00:01:59.140 align:middle line:90% and an odor rose from it. 00:01:59.140 --> 00:02:03.260 align:middle line:90% Man smell, but sweeter. 00:02:03.260 --> 00:02:09.199 align:middle line:84% Two small, hairless cubs were in it, pink as summer oleander, 00:02:09.199 --> 00:02:15.680 align:middle line:84% waving the little worm like things they had instead of paws. 00:02:15.680 --> 00:02:20.220 align:middle line:84% Naked like that, they made my blood go slow. 00:02:20.220 --> 00:02:23.480 align:middle line:90% My dugs begin to drip. 00:02:23.480 --> 00:02:25.160 align:middle line:90% I tipped the pod. 00:02:25.160 --> 00:02:27.100 align:middle line:90% They slid into the ferns. 00:02:27.100 --> 00:02:29.520 align:middle line:90% I nuzzled the howling pair. 00:02:29.520 --> 00:02:31.480 align:middle line:90% They found my side. 00:02:31.480 --> 00:02:35.680 align:middle line:84% They suckled there and drank their fill. 00:02:35.680 --> 00:02:40.920 align:middle line:84% That night the red star in the sky was bright. 00:02:40.920 --> 00:02:45.200 align:middle line:84% A vulture's eye that waits with a patience 00:02:45.200 --> 00:02:49.080 align:middle line:90% that I hardly understand. 00:02:49.080 --> 00:02:57.120 align:middle line:84% The twin cubs slept in their shining skin, warm at my side. 00:02:57.120 --> 00:03:03.300 align:middle line:84% I dreamed the trees were falling one by one, a sound deafening. 00:03:03.300 --> 00:03:05.440 align:middle line:84% The dust that rose from one a mist 00:03:05.440 --> 00:03:08.480 align:middle line:90% to hide the felling of the next. 00:03:08.480 --> 00:03:12.110 align:middle line:84% The mountains were cut into two, great stones 00:03:12.110 --> 00:03:17.430 align:middle line:84% were rolled and piled like hills until the sky was shut. 00:03:17.430 --> 00:03:22.310 align:middle line:84% Where the trees had grown, pillars of stone rose high. 00:03:22.310 --> 00:03:28.710 align:middle line:84% The birds circled, but their skulls struck the sky. 00:03:28.710 --> 00:03:33.310 align:middle line:84% Teeth to the earth, our den fell in like a rotted log 00:03:33.310 --> 00:03:35.830 align:middle line:90% when weight is added to decay. 00:03:35.830 --> 00:03:38.910 align:middle line:90% Nothing to eat, the cubs howled. 00:03:38.910 --> 00:03:40.970 align:middle line:90% The flesh fell from our bones. 00:03:40.970 --> 00:03:46.430 align:middle line:84% We ran under a strange sky whose light was wrong. 00:03:46.430 --> 00:03:50.190 align:middle line:84% It rose from the city walls, bounced off 00:03:50.190 --> 00:03:58.870 align:middle line:84% the leaden heaven flat as the sound of a stone striking mud. 00:03:58.870 --> 00:04:02.990 align:middle line:84% One of the brothers killed the other. 00:04:02.990 --> 00:04:07.430 align:middle line:84% Blood poured where the streams had run. 00:04:07.430 --> 00:04:11.290 align:middle line:84% Nowhere to drink, we slink from one rock to the next. 00:04:11.290 --> 00:04:17.290 align:middle line:84% Hunger drives us to the walls where sharp as the eyes of men 00:04:17.290 --> 00:04:24.530 align:middle line:84% death waits with its 1,000 iron thorns. 00:04:24.530 --> 00:04:29.410 align:middle line:84% But the warm sun woke me, I forgot. 00:04:29.410 --> 00:04:32.010 align:middle line:90% The twins were all I saw. 00:04:32.010 --> 00:04:35.490 align:middle line:84% For days we laid together by the den. 00:04:35.490 --> 00:04:39.250 align:middle line:84% The river ran beside us like a friend. 00:04:39.250 --> 00:04:43.210 align:middle line:84% They drank and laughed at the morning light that played 00:04:43.210 --> 00:04:46.930 align:middle line:90% in the shelter of the leaves. 00:04:46.930 --> 00:04:48.650 align:middle line:90% Forgive me. 00:04:48.650 --> 00:04:53.130 align:middle line:84% I was wolf and could not help the love 00:04:53.130 --> 00:04:56.570 align:middle line:90% that flowed from me to them. 00:04:56.570 --> 00:05:00.970 align:middle line:90% The thin sweet river of milk. 00:05:00.970 --> 00:05:07.250 align:middle line:84% Even now, though the world has come to match the dream, 00:05:07.250 --> 00:05:12.130 align:middle line:90% I think, I would give it again. 00:05:12.130 --> 00:05:15.180 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:05:15.180 --> 00:05:16.000 align:middle line:90%