WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.780 align:middle line:90%


00:00:00.780 --> 00:00:08.320 align:middle line:84%
The following is the
poem about my father,

00:00:08.320 --> 00:00:13.620 align:middle line:90%
which I wrote last spring.

00:00:13.620 --> 00:00:16.200 align:middle line:84%
And it follows a poem
about my grandfather,

00:00:16.200 --> 00:00:19.532 align:middle line:90%
which I wrote last fall.

00:00:19.532 --> 00:00:21.490 align:middle line:84%
But I think I'll read
the poem about my father.

00:00:21.490 --> 00:00:24.026 align:middle line:90%
It's called The Descent.

00:00:24.026 --> 00:00:27.360 align:middle line:90%


00:00:27.360 --> 00:00:30.630 align:middle line:90%
When I think of him, it is me.

00:00:30.630 --> 00:00:33.930 align:middle line:84%
As old pictures in
boxes, old books

00:00:33.930 --> 00:00:37.410 align:middle line:84%
covered with dust and
cobwebs, old hockey sticks,

00:00:37.410 --> 00:00:41.910 align:middle line:84%
baseball gloves, college manuals
have been carried from house

00:00:41.910 --> 00:00:45.120 align:middle line:84%
to house and I turn them
over many forgetful hours

00:00:45.120 --> 00:00:46.470 align:middle line:90%
underground.

00:00:46.470 --> 00:00:48.300 align:middle line:90%
His handwriting from how many?

00:00:48.300 --> 00:00:50.190 align:middle line:90%
30 years ago.

00:00:50.190 --> 00:00:53.370 align:middle line:84%
The eyes and the pictures
straight without desire

00:00:53.370 --> 00:00:55.410 align:middle line:90%
like mine.

00:00:55.410 --> 00:00:58.920 align:middle line:84%
It is me, an outlandish
clothes, long wool bathing suit,

00:00:58.920 --> 00:01:02.190 align:middle line:84%
plus for his white shoes,
holding tennis racket.

00:01:02.190 --> 00:01:05.519 align:middle line:84%
Me staring fixedly at the
invisible rigid camera

00:01:05.519 --> 00:01:08.730 align:middle line:84%
beside a jazzy black car
with white canvas top

00:01:08.730 --> 00:01:12.180 align:middle line:84%
spoke wheels resting
on dusty ground.

00:01:12.180 --> 00:01:15.030 align:middle line:90%
Somewhere 1927, Okanagan.

00:01:15.030 --> 00:01:18.720 align:middle line:84%
Highway beside rocky blasted
cliff over dangerous drop

00:01:18.720 --> 00:01:20.820 align:middle line:90%
into water below.

00:01:20.820 --> 00:01:22.800 align:middle line:84%
In one family
picture, he is bald,

00:01:22.800 --> 00:01:25.980 align:middle line:84%
having shaved his head for
fun and the summer sunshine,

00:01:25.980 --> 00:01:27.420 align:middle line:90%
my grandmother told me.

00:01:27.420 --> 00:01:29.040 align:middle line:90%
Though she never laughed.

00:01:29.040 --> 00:01:32.190 align:middle line:84%
She would have thought it
funny if she wasn't a Baptist.

00:01:32.190 --> 00:01:35.010 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:01:35.010 --> 00:01:38.730 align:middle line:84%
His brother's Collie dog sitting
beside him, muzzle in his hand.

00:01:38.730 --> 00:01:39.840 align:middle line:90%
Old Collie dead.

00:01:39.840 --> 00:01:40.560 align:middle line:90%
How many years?

00:01:40.560 --> 00:01:41.790 align:middle line:90%
And my grandmother.

00:01:41.790 --> 00:01:43.680 align:middle line:84%
And who knows where
the picture is now.

00:01:43.680 --> 00:01:45.400 align:middle line:90%
What happens to old cars?

00:01:45.400 --> 00:01:48.570 align:middle line:84%
I remember automobile graveyards
beside the highway all the way

00:01:48.570 --> 00:01:50.850 align:middle line:90%
down the coast one summer.

00:01:50.850 --> 00:01:52.930 align:middle line:90%
But I wonder what about him?

00:01:52.930 --> 00:01:54.030 align:middle line:90%
Where did he drive to?

00:01:54.030 --> 00:01:57.010 align:middle line:84%
I know he had to go out of
the house to have a cigarette.

00:01:57.010 --> 00:01:58.830 align:middle line:84%
There were many verbs
around that house,

00:01:58.830 --> 00:02:00.960 align:middle line:84%
and the chief among
them was give thanks.

00:02:00.960 --> 00:02:03.900 align:middle line:84%
Well, I hear he drove
through the snow 40

00:02:03.900 --> 00:02:07.680 align:middle line:84%
miles for a cold basketball
game where you could work it out

00:02:07.680 --> 00:02:10.560 align:middle line:84%
in sharp turns, leg weary
dashes up the floor.

00:02:10.560 --> 00:02:14.310 align:middle line:84%
While Lew, older, lay at
home on his broken back,

00:02:14.310 --> 00:02:17.430 align:middle line:84%
painting in oils, pleasant
scenes, giving thanks.

00:02:17.430 --> 00:02:21.660 align:middle line:84%
Or Jerry behind the shed, trying
to roll cigarettes from Apple

00:02:21.660 --> 00:02:22.380 align:middle line:90%
leaves.

00:02:22.380 --> 00:02:24.720 align:middle line:84%
Ella cheering without
knowledge when he

00:02:24.720 --> 00:02:26.490 align:middle line:90%
scored a basket from far out.

00:02:26.490 --> 00:02:29.730 align:middle line:90%
A point for us to give thanks.

00:02:29.730 --> 00:02:32.370 align:middle line:84%
An entirely masculine
gesture scoring a basket.

00:02:32.370 --> 00:02:33.930 align:middle line:90%
I remember where they lived.

00:02:33.930 --> 00:02:36.540 align:middle line:84%
You had to go out of the
house to have a crap sometimes

00:02:36.540 --> 00:02:41.110 align:middle line:84%
in the frozen middle of winter--
exposed girls and boys alike.

00:02:41.110 --> 00:02:43.410 align:middle line:84%
Well, when I look
at the pictures,

00:02:43.410 --> 00:02:46.800 align:middle line:84%
I see me looking back,
giving thanks to my 21st year

00:02:46.800 --> 00:02:48.150 align:middle line:90%
till I gave up praying.

00:02:48.150 --> 00:02:49.960 align:middle line:90%
He was a young man at college.

00:02:49.960 --> 00:02:52.830 align:middle line:84%
He got up in the dawn light,
walked through frozen snow

00:02:52.830 --> 00:02:54.300 align:middle line:90%
to light the cold furnaces.

00:02:54.300 --> 00:02:56.430 align:middle line:84%
The funny feeling
you get all alone

00:02:56.430 --> 00:02:58.890 align:middle line:84%
in the forbidden
early part of the day.

00:02:58.890 --> 00:03:01.050 align:middle line:84%
You hear animals
grunting like people

00:03:01.050 --> 00:03:04.260 align:middle line:84%
against the warmth of
walls, sea birds balancing

00:03:04.260 --> 00:03:06.690 align:middle line:84%
sleepy and frazzled
feathered on wires,

00:03:06.690 --> 00:03:10.380 align:middle line:84%
making the first morning slant
light gray peeps and chirps.

00:03:10.380 --> 00:03:13.410 align:middle line:84%
Answers coming quietly
from down the line.

00:03:13.410 --> 00:03:16.950 align:middle line:84%
It was like that summer we
watched four fires together

00:03:16.950 --> 00:03:19.230 align:middle line:90%
on top of a mountain.

00:03:19.230 --> 00:03:21.330 align:middle line:84%
He cracked ice for
the morning coffee

00:03:21.330 --> 00:03:22.560 align:middle line:90%
and the slippery porridge.

00:03:22.560 --> 00:03:24.840 align:middle line:84%
And birds made
tentative forbidden

00:03:24.840 --> 00:03:27.930 align:middle line:84%
sounds from another
part of the forest.

00:03:27.930 --> 00:03:30.810 align:middle line:84%
And sometimes, I'd find the
pictures from that summer,

00:03:30.810 --> 00:03:33.150 align:middle line:84%
me stirring the
growth in the pot

00:03:33.150 --> 00:03:35.820 align:middle line:84%
or him bending over
an undershirt straps,

00:03:35.820 --> 00:03:38.430 align:middle line:84%
hands on knees, civilized
man and whiskers

00:03:38.430 --> 00:03:42.240 align:middle line:84%
grimacing on top of a mountain,
the dog somewhere yapping

00:03:42.240 --> 00:03:44.400 align:middle line:84%
at a chipmunk, tail
full of birds, which

00:03:44.400 --> 00:03:47.790 align:middle line:84%
we would stop to pick out
quietly while the sun got

00:03:47.790 --> 00:03:49.200 align:middle line:90%
warmer on our backs.

00:03:49.200 --> 00:03:51.120 align:middle line:84%
The tent getting
near time for him

00:03:51.120 --> 00:03:54.120 align:middle line:84%
to check the other
mountains for smoke.

00:03:54.120 --> 00:03:56.550 align:middle line:84%
Both of us wandering
the top of our mountain

00:03:56.550 --> 00:03:59.430 align:middle line:90%
in underwear and pajamas.

00:03:59.430 --> 00:04:01.200 align:middle line:84%
With the pictures,
old love letters,

00:04:01.200 --> 00:04:04.200 align:middle line:84%
magazines, college manuals,
calendars with circled dates,

00:04:04.200 --> 00:04:06.960 align:middle line:84%
and the hopeless worn
out pages of labor songs

00:04:06.960 --> 00:04:10.380 align:middle line:84%
that I never asked about,
strange relics of the 1920s,

00:04:10.380 --> 00:04:13.800 align:middle line:84%
him alive during Dempsey
and Sacco-Vanzetti times.

00:04:13.800 --> 00:04:17.220 align:middle line:84%
So did he walk in crowds,
singing those things,

00:04:17.220 --> 00:04:21.420 align:middle line:84%
detach himself in thoughtful
rooms, reading them?

00:04:21.420 --> 00:04:24.150 align:middle line:84%
"Oh, my darling, Nellie Gray,
they have taken you away

00:04:24.150 --> 00:04:28.590 align:middle line:84%
and I'll never see my sweetheart
anymore" is what I heard.

00:04:28.590 --> 00:04:31.170 align:middle line:84%
Mornings of slippers
and banging stove

00:04:31.170 --> 00:04:34.020 align:middle line:84%
lids, I'd awaken to see
my giant icicles still

00:04:34.020 --> 00:04:35.250 align:middle line:90%
outside the window.

00:04:35.250 --> 00:04:37.740 align:middle line:84%
And him in the kitchen,
crumpling newspapers

00:04:37.740 --> 00:04:40.080 align:middle line:84%
and rattling the wood
box, rolling cigarette

00:04:40.080 --> 00:04:44.400 align:middle line:84%
while the flames caught always
the first time to which I

00:04:44.400 --> 00:04:45.600 align:middle line:90%
have always aspired.

00:04:45.600 --> 00:04:47.550 align:middle line:84%
Walking now to the
kitchen mornings

00:04:47.550 --> 00:04:50.010 align:middle line:84%
with the same gate of
bony feet slippers,

00:04:50.010 --> 00:04:52.890 align:middle line:84%
making the same first scratching
sounds of morning, woman

00:04:52.890 --> 00:04:57.480 align:middle line:84%
in bed, depending, I could
run a mountaintop all right.

00:04:57.480 --> 00:04:59.970 align:middle line:84%
Reading as much as
I can his old books,

00:04:59.970 --> 00:05:03.180 align:middle line:84%
Huxley, Tain, Hardy, Welles,
Dickens, Green, Dusty Volumes

00:05:03.180 --> 00:05:04.860 align:middle line:90%
in Dirty Boxes all signed.

00:05:04.860 --> 00:05:05.610 align:middle line:90%
How many?

00:05:05.610 --> 00:05:07.500 align:middle line:90%
35 years ago.

00:05:07.500 --> 00:05:10.110 align:middle line:84%
Thought control, Speed
Writing, Mysteries of the Yoga,

00:05:10.110 --> 00:05:12.780 align:middle line:84%
Scott to the Antarctica,
The Sun and His Neighbors,

00:05:12.780 --> 00:05:15.840 align:middle line:84%
Food for Thought, Western Grain
Farmer, The Life Bounteous,

00:05:15.840 --> 00:05:19.260 align:middle line:84%
Fertility Cults, Among
the South Sea Islanders.

00:05:19.260 --> 00:05:21.060 align:middle line:90%
Pages spiderweb together.

00:05:21.060 --> 00:05:23.580 align:middle line:84%
Bookmarks from
Brandon Manitoba shops

00:05:23.580 --> 00:05:25.200 align:middle line:84%
where I pass
through once looking

00:05:25.200 --> 00:05:28.450 align:middle line:84%
for designs of age in the
trees, imagining freezing

00:05:28.450 --> 00:05:31.030 align:middle line:84%
walks to the basement
furnaces, long hour

00:05:31.030 --> 00:05:34.480 align:middle line:84%
of warming air, waking
birds, the descent

00:05:34.480 --> 00:05:39.010 align:middle line:84%
follows the ascent to
wisdom as to despair.

00:05:39.010 --> 00:05:41.560 align:middle line:84%
Gave up praying as
his father before him.

00:05:41.560 --> 00:05:43.390 align:middle line:84%
I don't know when,
but in the pictures

00:05:43.390 --> 00:05:46.300 align:middle line:84%
he is youth leader, bent
on ethics and behavior

00:05:46.300 --> 00:05:49.720 align:middle line:84%
through the world, high score
on basketball team, top scholar.

00:05:49.720 --> 00:05:51.520 align:middle line:90%
Lost his finger in a buzzsaw.

00:05:51.520 --> 00:05:54.010 align:middle line:84%
Left pictures cars,
church behind him.

00:05:54.010 --> 00:05:54.760 align:middle line:90%
Gave thanks.

00:05:54.760 --> 00:05:56.470 align:middle line:90%
Climb the mountain of solitude.

00:05:56.470 --> 00:05:59.560 align:middle line:84%
Spoke sometimes in
short bursts of poetry,

00:05:59.560 --> 00:06:01.930 align:middle line:84%
trimming the muscles of
his arm, building houses

00:06:01.930 --> 00:06:02.830 align:middle line:90%
and filling them.

00:06:02.830 --> 00:06:04.900 align:middle line:84%
Leaving the rest in
the basement dusty,

00:06:04.900 --> 00:06:07.660 align:middle line:84%
and remembered behind
years of worn out

00:06:07.660 --> 00:06:09.550 align:middle line:90%
shoes, where I find it all now.

00:06:09.550 --> 00:06:11.470 align:middle line:90%
It is me when I think of him.

00:06:11.470 --> 00:06:13.360 align:middle line:90%
Him, me, we.

00:06:13.360 --> 00:06:18.430 align:middle line:84%
The descent follows live again,
but not as his mother told us.

00:06:18.430 --> 00:06:21.850 align:middle line:84%
He descends remembers
lives again in me,

00:06:21.850 --> 00:06:24.730 align:middle line:84%
ascending from this
basement into a new life.

00:06:24.730 --> 00:06:28.480 align:middle line:84%
Reborn from him from
time out into the air.

00:06:28.480 --> 00:06:31.090 align:middle line:84%
Shaking off the dust
like a dust rolling dog.

00:06:31.090 --> 00:06:34.380 align:middle line:90%
Free to wisdom and despair.

00:06:34.380 --> 00:06:35.000 align:middle line:90%