WEBVTT

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One poem before I get
into a group of three

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which deal with mythology then.

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OK, this is a poem I
wasn't going to read.

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It seems too
philosophical and heavy.

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But the interesting
story behind it

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again is actually
those things of life

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that must relate back
to life or else they've

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become completely sterile.

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And it happened again in Iowa.

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This fellow called me up
one night, and he said,

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I'd like to go out with a tape
recorder in a boat on this lake

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and record the
screeches of the hawks

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as they come over
the lake at night.

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And I thought that was
kind of a groovy idea.

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I've never been out in a boat
at night with a tape recorder

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trying to get the
sound of the hawks.

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And this seemed to be strange
enough and wonderful enough.

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So we went out, but
none of the hawks

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didn't feel like they were
aiming to come and play

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for us and the tape recorder.

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Man again trying to seduce
nature with mechanical objects

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and it doesn't work.

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Nature will have to
come at her own bidding.

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We were out there
for three hours,

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floating around close to
this complete dam ledge.

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The water was floating and it
was just like a 200-foot drop.

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And actually, the only part
of the evening I could salvage

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was something we didn't
go there for, to try

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to test how close we
could come to the edge

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without the current pulling us
over, the boat over the edge.

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"Canoe moving, or
only water moving,

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we feared tumbling where
water weight surrender,

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to ask of us its own silence.

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A hawk screeched and
dipped black wings.

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All our life-long is
like that, floating

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in metaphors beyond our
shores, while water carries off

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salvation faster than the
myth can dream escape.

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There, fear subsists
in air, hovering

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in a dimension of flesh.

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Voices, mother.

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We tugged on faltering
oars toward the brink,

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some final illumined news.

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Oars churned deeply
beyond reflections.

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Our faces rippled
darkly, then drowned.

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This is the grave of bloated
fish, where we give excuse

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for the shyness of flesh.

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We eyed each other
in cartoon silence,

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knowing there is a
limit we cannot edge,

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wanting an uncertainty
to run from,

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something sure to
drift back to."

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