WEBVTT NOTE Created by CaptionSync from Automatic Sync Technologies www.automaticsync.com 00:00:01.296 --> 00:00:07.066 align:middle >> And bringing us a couple centuries further towards the Contemporary, 00:00:08.006 --> 00:00:15.296 align:middle this is a poem from a living Mexican poet named Alfonso D'Aquino and it's written -- 00:00:15.456 --> 00:00:20.186 align:middle He was kind of an ecopoet before 00:00:21.116 --> 00:00:23.636 align:middle we had a word like ecopoetry. 00:00:24.286 --> 00:00:27.596 align:middle He lives out in -- Away from the cities. 00:00:27.596 --> 00:00:31.846 align:middle He knows all the medicinal plants and the little lizards 00:00:31.846 --> 00:00:34.486 align:middle that do push-ups on the rocks outside his house. 00:00:35.746 --> 00:00:39.076 align:middle And the stars, he knows pretty well. 00:00:39.846 --> 00:00:48.966 align:middle This is written in two columns and it can be read vertically, the columns read vertically 00:00:49.286 --> 00:00:51.656 align:middle and they also read across horizontally. 00:00:51.656 --> 00:00:55.196 align:middle So it's a real challenge to translate to get it to work. 00:00:56.636 --> 00:01:04.886 align:middle One thing you should know is -- Well, let me -- I'll read Spanish. 00:01:04.956 --> 00:01:09.516 align:middle I'll read a column vertically in the Spanish, then I'll read the English across 00:01:09.956 --> 00:01:18.946 align:middle and the aile is the Spanish word for an alder tree. 00:01:21.696 --> 00:01:22.636 align:middle So vertically. 00:01:22.636 --> 00:01:28.196 align:middle No tiene ninguna forma la hoja en medio de las hojas. 00:01:28.196 --> 00:01:36.026 align:middle Las hojas no son el aile, sino el aire que lo copa y una copa cabe en otra, 00:01:36.086 --> 00:01:38.686 align:middle dentro de una sola hoja. 00:01:38.686 --> 00:01:44.816 align:middle Movimiento de la fronda que desvela otra rosa y una en otra se transforma, 00:01:45.476 --> 00:01:47.686 align:middle como un cielo entre dos hojas. 00:01:48.476 --> 00:01:52.476 align:middle Invisible rama loca se retuerce por sí sola. 00:01:53.166 --> 00:01:57.416 align:middle Si una hoja y otra hoja siempre son la misma hoja. 00:01:59.456 --> 00:02:00.246 align:middle Frond. 00:02:03.106 --> 00:02:10.666 align:middle It's formless, from within the leaves I see the leaf in the middle, one brushing another 00:02:11.166 --> 00:02:19.816 align:middle of the leaves that keeps it company, leaves aren't the alder, all the tree of leaf, 00:02:20.106 --> 00:02:26.486 align:middle but the air that holds all the alder and its sleeve and more leaves. 00:02:27.546 --> 00:02:33.716 align:middle And trees drink each other in and a frond emerges from one of them. 00:02:33.756 --> 00:02:37.806 align:middle Tangled in the branches, a singular leaf among the leaves. 00:02:38.066 --> 00:02:43.666 align:middle Gesticulation of that frond from within its patterns, 00:02:43.666 --> 00:02:49.476 align:middle I see disclosing in the shadowed bower another flower, the other flower, 00:02:49.696 --> 00:02:57.846 align:middle and each moves into the other and the phylum transfluoresces, like a sky and visibly woven end 00:02:58.216 --> 00:03:07.116 align:middle between two leaves, opening out wild invisible branch the stock and the corolla twisting, 00:03:07.206 --> 00:03:11.496 align:middle spirals darkening into one form and digging in. 00:03:12.806 --> 00:03:19.586 align:middle If one leaf and another leaf from the unseen branch always are to the shade 00:03:19.586 --> 00:03:23.896 align:middle of this leaf, the same leaf falling, broken. 00:03:27.406 --> 00:03:28.956 align:middle Sweet, sweet poem. 00:03:28.956 --> 00:03:30.056 align:middle Alfonso D'Aquino. 00:03:31.196 --> 00:03:37.716 align:middle Octavio Paz discovered him when he was like 22 and published his first book 00:03:37.716 --> 00:03:42.596 align:middle and the first thing he did, like Jack Gilbert, you know, was move away from the city 00:03:42.686 --> 00:03:49.586 align:middle and stay away from all the famous other poets and just write his own work kind of quietly.