WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.330 align:middle line:84%
OK, now I'll turn to The
Elderly Battlefield Nurse,

00:00:03.330 --> 00:00:05.940 align:middle line:84%
and read a couple
of poems which are

00:00:05.940 --> 00:00:10.350 align:middle line:84%
an extension of this
death of the horror,

00:00:10.350 --> 00:00:14.400 align:middle line:84%
and the problem of
this kind of death.

00:00:14.400 --> 00:00:17.940 align:middle line:84%
Taken out of a military context,
not of a theological context.

00:00:17.940 --> 00:00:21.990 align:middle line:84%
Then let us look
at a short lyric

00:00:21.990 --> 00:00:25.800 align:middle line:84%
poem dealing with the finding of
someone you knew that was dead.

00:00:25.800 --> 00:00:28.320 align:middle line:84%
Which happened to me two
years ago in Wisconsin.

00:00:28.320 --> 00:00:32.729 align:middle line:84%
A fellow instructor,
who after a two weeks

00:00:32.729 --> 00:00:34.800 align:middle line:84%
Christmas vacation didn't
come back to school.

00:00:34.800 --> 00:00:36.690 align:middle line:84%
And fearing that he
might have hurt himself

00:00:36.690 --> 00:00:40.560 align:middle line:84%
and couldn't reach the phone, my
wife and I went to locate him.

00:00:40.560 --> 00:00:42.742 align:middle line:84%
And I found him
dead on the sofa.

00:00:42.742 --> 00:00:43.950 align:middle line:90%
Had been dead for three days.

00:00:43.950 --> 00:00:48.075 align:middle line:84%
And when the paper boy
came to deliver papers,

00:00:48.075 --> 00:00:49.950 align:middle line:84%
thought that he was
taking his afternoon nap.

00:00:49.950 --> 00:00:51.330 align:middle line:90%
He was forever.

00:00:51.330 --> 00:00:57.630 align:middle line:84%
And ironically, that
afternoon I had been hunting.

00:00:57.630 --> 00:00:59.130 align:middle line:90%
It was about 20 degrees.

00:00:59.130 --> 00:01:01.970 align:middle line:84%
Beautiful clear blue sky, but
an inch of snow on the ground.

00:01:01.970 --> 00:01:03.990 align:middle line:84%
It was good for
tracking rabbits.

00:01:03.990 --> 00:01:05.650 align:middle line:84%
And I had telescopic
sights on a rifle,

00:01:05.650 --> 00:01:09.062 align:middle line:84%
and I was searching
for cotton tails.

00:01:09.062 --> 00:01:10.020 align:middle line:90%
It didn't hit anything.

00:01:10.020 --> 00:01:14.640 align:middle line:84%
But coming back that afternoon
to find my friend dead,

00:01:14.640 --> 00:01:16.500 align:middle line:84%
as I look through
the stone window

00:01:16.500 --> 00:01:20.250 align:middle line:84%
dividers he was framed
in there as if I were

00:01:20.250 --> 00:01:22.080 align:middle line:90%
looking through a telescope.

00:01:22.080 --> 00:01:24.750 align:middle line:84%
And so I use that as
the image of death.

00:01:24.750 --> 00:01:27.000 align:middle line:84%
Death, to me, in a
naturalistic world

00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:29.970 align:middle line:84%
is, as it was to Stephen
Crane, the gun that shoots you,

00:01:29.970 --> 00:01:31.740 align:middle line:84%
the bullet doesn't
have your name on it.

00:01:31.740 --> 00:01:34.020 align:middle line:84%
At least if the bullet
had your name on it,

00:01:34.020 --> 00:01:36.660 align:middle line:84%
you could feel halfway
happy about it.

00:01:36.660 --> 00:01:38.980 align:middle line:84%
At least someone cared enough
to put your name on it.

00:01:38.980 --> 00:01:42.810 align:middle line:84%
But Wally brown died at
34 of a heart attack.

00:01:42.810 --> 00:01:45.060 align:middle line:84%
And so this is what I find
part of the horror in life.

00:01:45.060 --> 00:01:49.050 align:middle line:84%
It isn't as deep as a
metaphysical horror, exactly.

00:01:49.050 --> 00:01:51.415 align:middle line:84%
He wasn't struggling against
anything when he died.

00:01:51.415 --> 00:01:53.040 align:middle line:84%
In fact, he was
correcting term papers.

00:01:53.040 --> 00:01:55.845 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:01:55.845 --> 00:02:00.210 align:middle line:90%


00:02:00.210 --> 00:02:01.770 align:middle line:90%
So this is to him.

00:02:01.770 --> 00:02:04.200 align:middle line:90%
"Wally Brown, Instructor."

00:02:04.200 --> 00:02:06.095 align:middle line:84%
The major thing
of the whole poem

00:02:06.095 --> 00:02:07.470 align:middle line:84%
actually is, as
I mentioned, just

00:02:07.470 --> 00:02:12.240 align:middle line:84%
that one image of
death as a telescope.

00:02:12.240 --> 00:02:15.300 align:middle line:84%
I just tried to reconstruct
the scene that I've told you.

00:02:15.300 --> 00:02:17.820 align:middle line:84%
"Mine were the only snow
tracks coming and going

00:02:17.820 --> 00:02:19.140 align:middle line:90%
like death calling.

00:02:19.140 --> 00:02:21.210 align:middle line:84%
Where an evening,
fresh from the hunt,

00:02:21.210 --> 00:02:25.050 align:middle line:84%
I found you napping away
your three day vigil forever.

00:02:25.050 --> 00:02:26.790 align:middle line:84%
Newspapers were
rolled at the door

00:02:26.790 --> 00:02:30.630 align:middle line:84%
like papyrus of some terminal,
officious proclamation.

00:02:30.630 --> 00:02:32.580 align:middle line:84%
Your house ablaze
like a cathedral,

00:02:32.580 --> 00:02:35.220 align:middle line:84%
kept the neighbors
and robbers away.

00:02:35.220 --> 00:02:37.410 align:middle line:84%
Term papers you
settle down to read

00:02:37.410 --> 00:02:39.960 align:middle line:84%
were piled thick
as Sears-Roebuck.

00:02:39.960 --> 00:02:42.390 align:middle line:84%
Everything tidied before
your heart went out.

00:02:42.390 --> 00:02:44.070 align:middle line:90%
The front door was opened.

00:02:44.070 --> 00:02:46.050 align:middle line:90%
Were you waiting?

00:02:46.050 --> 00:02:48.780 align:middle line:84%
Your bloated pale body mooned
through the storm window

00:02:48.780 --> 00:02:51.180 align:middle line:84%
dividers to shoot
me through the eyes.

00:02:51.180 --> 00:02:54.540 align:middle line:84%
A theme in your clenched hand
caught you drifting asleep.

00:02:54.540 --> 00:02:56.280 align:middle line:90%
Blue because of snow.

00:02:56.280 --> 00:02:59.310 align:middle line:84%
Blue sky because
of sun, no clouds.

00:02:59.310 --> 00:03:02.640 align:middle line:84%
In the soft snow I had
lain sighting cotton tails.

00:03:02.640 --> 00:03:04.710 align:middle line:84%
They waved their
behind like truce flags

00:03:04.710 --> 00:03:06.390 align:middle line:90%
in innocent retreat.

00:03:06.390 --> 00:03:08.760 align:middle line:84%
I arose, left my
other self there.

00:03:08.760 --> 00:03:10.740 align:middle line:84%
Returned from the
hunt to find you.

00:03:10.740 --> 00:03:14.250 align:middle line:84%
See myself where we
must follow, framed

00:03:14.250 --> 00:03:17.450 align:middle line:84%
in cross hairs of
telescopic sights."

00:03:17.450 --> 00:03:18.000 align:middle line:90%