WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.470 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.470 --> 00:00:03.630 align:middle line:84% And I'm going to end with the only thing I brought 00:00:03.630 --> 00:00:05.970 align:middle line:84% that actually is, at least, fairly new 00:00:05.970 --> 00:00:07.270 align:middle line:90% in the last couple of years. 00:00:07.270 --> 00:00:14.580 align:middle line:84% That's a fairly long piece from a long work 00:00:14.580 --> 00:00:17.430 align:middle line:84% I've been writing for several years called Pushing Water. 00:00:17.430 --> 00:00:20.430 align:middle line:84% That's pretty much finished now and should 00:00:20.430 --> 00:00:23.110 align:middle line:90% be a book this coming year. 00:00:23.110 --> 00:00:25.920 align:middle line:84% This is "Pushing Water," Section 50. 00:00:25.920 --> 00:00:28.890 align:middle line:84% And partly comes out of an engagement 00:00:28.890 --> 00:00:31.920 align:middle line:84% with the half-English, half-Welsh poet 00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:35.260 align:middle line:84% and painter David Jones and his work. 00:00:35.260 --> 00:00:42.240 align:middle line:84% And so there are a couple of words taken that he uses. 00:00:42.240 --> 00:00:45.510 align:middle line:84% One is "anoeth" and the other anoethanau. 00:00:45.510 --> 00:00:50.070 align:middle line:84% And anoeth means something like wonder or mystery. 00:00:50.070 --> 00:00:51.300 align:middle line:90% Actually both of them do. 00:00:51.300 --> 00:00:55.980 align:middle line:84% And sometimes they're associated with the things buried 00:00:55.980 --> 00:01:00.810 align:middle line:90% with Arthur in British myth. 00:01:00.810 --> 00:01:07.440 align:middle line:84% Alas, and away afar and abrupt, in or out of water, the creek 00:01:07.440 --> 00:01:11.400 align:middle line:84% behind the redwood house, where the horse throws a rider 00:01:11.400 --> 00:01:14.190 align:middle line:90% manna wooden to Sequoia. 00:01:14.190 --> 00:01:18.690 align:middle line:84% The syllables connect and condense in the shining waters. 00:01:18.690 --> 00:01:22.470 align:middle line:84% The sands of Iwo Jima, the Bridge on the River Kwai, 00:01:22.470 --> 00:01:26.730 align:middle line:84% the catcher in the rye, the catcher in a crouch stance 00:01:26.730 --> 00:01:29.940 align:middle line:84% holding one or two fingers down, the wind up 00:01:29.940 --> 00:01:33.600 align:middle line:84% and the pinch me before I wake from the dream. 00:01:33.600 --> 00:01:36.240 align:middle line:84% Pinch me in the dark, and I remain 00:01:36.240 --> 00:01:39.300 align:middle line:84% where the water runs quickly over stones, 00:01:39.300 --> 00:01:43.230 align:middle line:84% flat over a ledge, steady as letters falling 00:01:43.230 --> 00:01:48.000 align:middle line:84% upon a page, feet falling on the trail, bodies falling 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:52.410 align:middle line:84% in the trench, notes falling in the ear, lemons falling 00:01:52.410 --> 00:01:56.700 align:middle line:84% from the tree, tears falling, or flesh tearing, 00:01:56.700 --> 00:02:00.360 align:middle line:90% paper tearing painted walls. 00:02:00.360 --> 00:02:05.250 align:middle line:84% Tearing, the walls do not fall but separate as days, 00:02:05.250 --> 00:02:08.070 align:middle line:90% as minutes, as phonemes. 00:02:08.070 --> 00:02:11.970 align:middle line:84% Ask the wind, said the owl if he's there 00:02:11.970 --> 00:02:14.400 align:middle line:84% and has not fallen into the water. 00:02:14.400 --> 00:02:17.730 align:middle line:84% Pushing up from under the water, the dream 00:02:17.730 --> 00:02:19.860 align:middle line:90% pushes up from under the water. 00:02:19.860 --> 00:02:23.830 align:middle line:84% The muscle folds into the held space, out of the light. 00:02:23.830 --> 00:02:25.500 align:middle line:90% And we begin again. 00:02:25.500 --> 00:02:26.890 align:middle line:90% Press the button. 00:02:26.890 --> 00:02:28.020 align:middle line:90% Hold the phone. 00:02:28.020 --> 00:02:29.370 align:middle line:90% Water the plants. 00:02:29.370 --> 00:02:30.900 align:middle line:90% Water the eyes. 00:02:30.900 --> 00:02:34.830 align:middle line:84% No, she said, with a thundering clarity. 00:02:34.830 --> 00:02:37.230 align:middle line:90% The numbers do matter. 00:02:37.230 --> 00:02:39.810 align:middle line:90% The shape shifts to gender. 00:02:39.810 --> 00:02:42.510 align:middle line:90% Agenda discovered and disproved. 00:02:42.510 --> 00:02:49.050 align:middle line:84% Hair's unkempt, alas and away, abrupt in the negative light, 00:02:49.050 --> 00:02:52.980 align:middle line:84% capable as the wind unravels the perfect web. 00:02:52.980 --> 00:02:56.250 align:middle line:84% Improbable wind centers the margin. 00:02:56.250 --> 00:03:00.450 align:middle line:84% Leaves uplift astray and hold in no pattern. 00:03:00.450 --> 00:03:03.540 align:middle line:84% But gold and green light delivers the world 00:03:03.540 --> 00:03:07.680 align:middle line:84% to eyes inside all heads, kicking the rock, 00:03:07.680 --> 00:03:11.220 align:middle line:84% shuffling the cards, dancing the light steps, 00:03:11.220 --> 00:03:14.610 align:middle line:84% dancing the hard steps, the movement of light 00:03:14.610 --> 00:03:17.640 align:middle line:84% through a prism of water, in or out 00:03:17.640 --> 00:03:21.450 align:middle line:90% of water, push or pull of water. 00:03:21.450 --> 00:03:26.010 align:middle line:84% Balboa, because of letters crossing the waves, full fathom 00:03:26.010 --> 00:03:30.000 align:middle line:84% five, in which the west ends, where the bus gets out. 00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:33.480 align:middle line:84% The place where there is no there there. 00:03:33.480 --> 00:03:35.820 align:middle line:90% The place of field, and wave. 00:03:35.820 --> 00:03:38.280 align:middle line:90% And time's leap to space. 00:03:38.280 --> 00:03:41.280 align:middle line:90% Not see, but see through. 00:03:41.280 --> 00:03:42.720 align:middle line:90% See with. 00:03:42.720 --> 00:03:47.790 align:middle line:84% Starlight, star bright, first star I see through tonight, 00:03:47.790 --> 00:03:50.520 align:middle line:90% first star I see with tonight. 00:03:50.520 --> 00:03:55.740 align:middle line:84% And so microlens, the far-flung field becomes less far, 00:03:55.740 --> 00:03:59.070 align:middle line:84% less flung, less flight of the bumblebees, 00:03:59.070 --> 00:04:03.600 align:middle line:84% more legs leaping flight of lords and ladies crossing 00:04:03.600 --> 00:04:07.920 align:middle line:84% the water, crossing the land crossing the skies, 00:04:07.920 --> 00:04:10.890 align:middle line:84% dotting the I's, crossing the T's. 00:04:10.890 --> 00:04:13.740 align:middle line:84% Through the hole in the e, arriving 00:04:13.740 --> 00:04:17.850 align:middle line:84% at place of first permission, place of last landing, 00:04:17.850 --> 00:04:23.100 align:middle line:84% place to stay, place to dig, place to live, place to leave, 00:04:23.100 --> 00:04:24.780 align:middle line:90% place to die. 00:04:24.780 --> 00:04:26.550 align:middle line:90% I won't need them anymore. 00:04:26.550 --> 00:04:31.500 align:middle line:84% Getting dark, too dark to see through the whole lemon light, 00:04:31.500 --> 00:04:37.800 align:middle line:84% lifting light, bent and clear light, loose light in water. 00:04:37.800 --> 00:04:39.900 align:middle line:84% We begin at 10:30 in the morning. 00:04:39.900 --> 00:04:42.870 align:middle line:84% We continue until 11:30 in the morning. 00:04:42.870 --> 00:04:45.270 align:middle line:90% The first day could be any day. 00:04:45.270 --> 00:04:48.300 align:middle line:84% The second hour could be stuck in time. 00:04:48.300 --> 00:04:51.360 align:middle line:84% The whole hour could be freed in time. 00:04:51.360 --> 00:04:54.660 align:middle line:84% The light hour could be free from time 00:04:54.660 --> 00:05:00.690 align:middle line:84% so that any day may eclipse this day, this day night ellipse. 00:05:00.690 --> 00:05:02.860 align:middle line:90% Good night sun and moon. 00:05:02.860 --> 00:05:03.810 align:middle line:90% You rise. 00:05:03.810 --> 00:05:09.570 align:middle line:84% I set upon no time like the present, no time like all time. 00:05:09.570 --> 00:05:12.620 align:middle line:84% Time to see our image in pushing water, 00:05:12.620 --> 00:05:16.740 align:middle line:84% our word in the curving river, our promise in the light, 00:05:16.740 --> 00:05:18.620 align:middle line:90% our echo in the dark. 00:05:18.620 --> 00:05:20.810 align:middle line:90% Sings a song of sixpence. 00:05:20.810 --> 00:05:26.910 align:middle line:84% Sings a song of 6 gallons not so slowly moving away. 00:05:26.910 --> 00:05:33.660 align:middle line:84% Sing time lapse, flap, fault. Sling lime apps, foot, flaw. 00:05:33.660 --> 00:05:36.890 align:middle line:90% See grimes labs frost falls. 00:05:36.890 --> 00:05:39.800 align:middle line:90% Seegle apster ostaff alse. 00:05:39.800 --> 00:05:42.590 align:middle line:90% Syllable rips a sound away. 00:05:42.590 --> 00:05:45.740 align:middle line:84% Sip a drink of water carved from ice. 00:05:45.740 --> 00:05:48.560 align:middle line:90% What pieces of work are words? 00:05:48.560 --> 00:05:52.550 align:middle line:84% We are such stuff as dreams are dreamed on. 00:05:52.550 --> 00:05:55.130 align:middle line:84% Ask me anything, but give me flesh. 00:05:55.130 --> 00:05:57.260 align:middle line:90% Or bury me face up in the water. 00:05:57.260 --> 00:06:01.160 align:middle line:84% Cover my face with words or what's inside words, 00:06:01.160 --> 00:06:04.850 align:middle line:84% the two solid, liquid flesh of language 00:06:04.850 --> 00:06:08.090 align:middle line:84% push to utter where the point is. 00:06:08.090 --> 00:06:10.970 align:middle line:84% And letters can be placed into the paper 00:06:10.970 --> 00:06:17.390 align:middle line:84% or emerge there from for poems to car, color, self, utter, 00:06:17.390 --> 00:06:22.640 align:middle line:84% ask, round, utter, move, to balance shape of sun 00:06:22.640 --> 00:06:27.770 align:middle line:84% across blue or mottled expanse, or shape of bridge 00:06:27.770 --> 00:06:31.310 align:middle line:84% from the lime deposits, to the landing module. 00:06:31.310 --> 00:06:34.340 align:middle line:84% The constant is movement and change. 00:06:34.340 --> 00:06:37.640 align:middle line:90% What does not change? 00:06:37.640 --> 00:06:41.360 align:middle line:84% In the morning shift of light the street shows its skin, 00:06:41.360 --> 00:06:44.570 align:middle line:84% cracked and chipped lines across and through, 00:06:44.570 --> 00:06:46.400 align:middle line:90% bits of curb broken. 00:06:46.400 --> 00:06:50.760 align:middle line:84% The city runs into its future on to bruised legs. 00:06:50.760 --> 00:06:53.120 align:middle line:84% Let the wind bring water and leaf 00:06:53.120 --> 00:06:56.750 align:middle line:84% down to feet moving on mud across the arc 00:06:56.750 --> 00:06:58.610 align:middle line:90% and through the water. 00:06:58.610 --> 00:07:00.650 align:middle line:90% How fast did they move? 00:07:00.650 --> 00:07:06.350 align:middle line:84% Faster than any whale a mile or more in 3 minutes. 00:07:06.350 --> 00:07:09.470 align:middle line:84% That first creek behind the redwood house to the fishing 00:07:09.470 --> 00:07:13.310 align:middle line:84% hole, where the old catfish grows older still, 00:07:13.310 --> 00:07:16.850 align:middle line:84% we are inside the wave of the world. 00:07:16.850 --> 00:07:18.920 align:middle line:90% God is fully physical. 00:07:18.920 --> 00:07:22.040 align:middle line:84% Paradise is the walk upon the body, where 00:07:22.040 --> 00:07:27.050 align:middle line:84% the letters wake, when the child cries, "come into this world 00:07:27.050 --> 00:07:30.830 align:middle line:90% in order to go up and around." 00:07:30.830 --> 00:07:36.170 align:middle line:84% The day the leaves blew walked in Shunga dynasty time, 00:07:36.170 --> 00:07:38.480 align:middle line:84% when the prevailing color was yellow 00:07:38.480 --> 00:07:41.810 align:middle line:84% and the prevailing wind up and circular, 00:07:41.810 --> 00:07:44.750 align:middle line:84% not boring down in a spiral, digging, 00:07:44.750 --> 00:07:49.340 align:middle line:84% but up, as if an invisible hand had set itself down and lifted 00:07:49.340 --> 00:07:54.200 align:middle line:84% everything to turn over and under with every other thing, 00:07:54.200 --> 00:07:58.550 align:middle line:84% leaves and branches and that ever yellow color. 00:07:58.550 --> 00:08:02.420 align:middle line:84% In the dream was possibility of creating the world again. 00:08:02.420 --> 00:08:05.780 align:middle line:84% The only way was to lift everything up and undergo 00:08:05.780 --> 00:08:09.530 align:middle line:84% a mingling of molecules so that all objects knew 00:08:09.530 --> 00:08:11.120 align:middle line:90% all other objects. 00:08:11.120 --> 00:08:14.810 align:middle line:84% Each was part of each and person, as well. 00:08:14.810 --> 00:08:16.370 align:middle line:90% Love is form. 00:08:16.370 --> 00:08:19.010 align:middle line:90% Love is mingling of form. 00:08:19.010 --> 00:08:23.030 align:middle line:84% We have taken too long to arrive at the wrong place. 00:08:23.030 --> 00:08:26.180 align:middle line:84% Let us begin again as though space is a circle 00:08:26.180 --> 00:08:30.500 align:middle line:84% and time the force that spins it all until we lift up 00:08:30.500 --> 00:08:34.580 align:middle line:84% and fall down dizzy, and bruised, and bruised. 00:08:34.580 --> 00:08:40.309 align:middle line:84% I am pear, and apple, frog, and toad, needle and pin, 00:08:40.309 --> 00:08:43.760 align:middle line:84% head over heels in and out of my shoes 00:08:43.760 --> 00:08:45.680 align:middle line:90% until a mockingbird calls. 00:08:45.680 --> 00:08:49.280 align:middle line:84% And it is time to stand up again on the rock 00:08:49.280 --> 00:08:51.890 align:middle line:90% at the edge of the morning. 00:08:51.890 --> 00:08:58.640 align:middle line:84% Anoeth the marvelous hidden stuff of rock and lime cup time 00:08:58.640 --> 00:09:02.390 align:middle line:84% beyond time, which cannot be used. 00:09:02.390 --> 00:09:07.070 align:middle line:84% What cannot be used is of much use, anoethanau. 00:09:07.070 --> 00:09:10.580 align:middle line:84% Leaves rustle in Birnham wood, or in the Somme, 00:09:10.580 --> 00:09:12.560 align:middle line:90% or North of the great canyon. 00:09:12.560 --> 00:09:16.670 align:middle line:84% Even midsummer, the air cool the path dark 00:09:16.670 --> 00:09:20.600 align:middle line:84% with emerging traces of illumination to navigate 00:09:20.600 --> 00:09:25.250 align:middle line:84% and circumnavigate, hither again to haven, heaven. 00:09:25.250 --> 00:09:31.040 align:middle line:84% hover suspend a wing and a word over a place water 00:09:31.040 --> 00:09:37.670 align:middle line:84% meets land, a place of landing, western shore, Anglesee, birch 00:09:37.670 --> 00:09:39.110 align:middle line:90% by the sea. 00:09:39.110 --> 00:09:44.780 align:middle line:84% Anoeth bid bet y Arthur anoint with bells and art soars 00:09:44.780 --> 00:09:46.850 align:middle line:90% anew by Earth and water. 00:09:46.850 --> 00:09:49.400 align:middle line:84% Dig under the words are inside them. 00:09:49.400 --> 00:09:52.760 align:middle line:90% Word Earth wonder anoeth. 00:09:52.760 --> 00:09:56.570 align:middle line:84% Behind our house a mound of dirt rich for the garden. 00:09:56.570 --> 00:10:01.100 align:middle line:84% Leave it undisturbed until music fills the weeds, the grass, 00:10:01.100 --> 00:10:04.070 align:middle line:84% the red buds, and petals, and purple yellow, 00:10:04.070 --> 00:10:08.915 align:middle line:84% the difficult things of wonder, the uncovered dreams, 00:10:08.915 --> 00:10:13.070 align:middle line:84% anoethau materials in which I speak 00:10:13.070 --> 00:10:18.360 align:middle line:84% of the best of dreams dreamed at midnight when men, women, 00:10:18.360 --> 00:10:21.680 align:middle line:90% and their voices rest. 00:10:21.680 --> 00:10:23.120 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:10:23.120 --> 00:10:26.770 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:10:26.770 --> 00:10:29.000 align:middle line:90%