WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:11.880 align:middle line:90% 00:00:11.880 --> 00:00:15.345 align:middle line:90% [INTERPOSING VOICES] 00:00:15.345 --> 00:02:57.510 align:middle line:90% 00:02:57.510 --> 00:02:59.790 align:middle line:84% I'm glad to see you all found that the reading was not 00:02:59.790 --> 00:03:02.970 align:middle line:84% at the Poetry Center, as was announced in the newspaper. 00:03:02.970 --> 00:03:05.525 align:middle line:90% 00:03:05.525 --> 00:03:06.900 align:middle line:84% We'll be having punch and cookies 00:03:06.900 --> 00:03:09.050 align:middle line:90% tonight at the Student Union. 00:03:09.050 --> 00:03:10.050 align:middle line:90% I hope you can all come. 00:03:10.050 --> 00:03:11.467 align:middle line:84% If you haven't met Miss Gallagher, 00:03:11.467 --> 00:03:15.190 align:middle line:84% it will be a chance for you to say hello. 00:03:15.190 --> 00:03:17.230 align:middle line:84% Several people called last week rather upset 00:03:17.230 --> 00:03:19.969 align:middle line:90% that we didn't have a reading. 00:03:19.969 --> 00:03:22.810 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:22.810 --> 00:03:25.090 align:middle line:84% I can assure you that the next three Wednesdays, 00:03:25.090 --> 00:03:26.470 align:middle line:90% there are readings. 00:03:26.470 --> 00:03:28.150 align:middle line:84% And then we get one more week off. 00:03:28.150 --> 00:03:31.780 align:middle line:84% And the last reading will be November 28. 00:03:31.780 --> 00:03:35.335 align:middle line:84% Next week's reader is Robert Pack. 00:03:35.335 --> 00:03:39.340 align:middle line:84% He comes to us from Middlebury, Connecticut-- 00:03:39.340 --> 00:03:42.820 align:middle line:84% Vermont, [LAUGHS] excuse me, Middlebury, Vermont. 00:03:42.820 --> 00:03:46.390 align:middle line:84% And he's the director of the Bread Loaf writers conference. 00:03:46.390 --> 00:03:50.440 align:middle line:84% And that will be on Halloween, which 00:03:50.440 --> 00:03:56.160 align:middle line:84% is why we have a pumpkin-colored announcement for you. 00:03:56.160 --> 00:03:59.610 align:middle line:84% I am, as usual, looking for news for the next newsletter. 00:03:59.610 --> 00:04:02.280 align:middle line:90% 00:04:02.280 --> 00:04:04.890 align:middle line:84% If you're too shy to tell me what 00:04:04.890 --> 00:04:06.780 align:middle line:84% nice things have happened to you, 00:04:06.780 --> 00:04:08.220 align:middle line:84% get one of your friends to do it. 00:04:08.220 --> 00:04:14.010 align:middle line:90% 00:04:14.010 --> 00:04:18.227 align:middle line:84% Tess Gallagher read for us in 1977 as a visiting poet. 00:04:18.227 --> 00:04:19.769 align:middle line:84% And we're very happy to have her here 00:04:19.769 --> 00:04:22.515 align:middle line:84% now as a member of our creative writing faculty. 00:04:22.515 --> 00:04:25.130 align:middle line:90% 00:04:25.130 --> 00:04:32.110 align:middle line:84% Her books are Instructions to the Double, Under Stars, 00:04:32.110 --> 00:04:34.420 align:middle line:90% and Stepping Outside. 00:04:34.420 --> 00:04:38.290 align:middle line:84% Her work appears in many anthologies and many poetry 00:04:38.290 --> 00:04:39.940 align:middle line:90% magazines. 00:04:39.940 --> 00:04:41.380 align:middle line:84% In addition to her poetry writing, 00:04:41.380 --> 00:04:46.120 align:middle line:84% she is also a columnist for The American Poetry Review. 00:04:46.120 --> 00:04:48.640 align:middle line:84% We're very happy to have her read for us tonight-- 00:04:48.640 --> 00:04:50.117 align:middle line:90% Miss Tess Gallagher. 00:04:50.117 --> 00:04:53.039 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:04:53.039 --> 00:05:03.280 align:middle line:90% 00:05:03.280 --> 00:05:09.810 align:middle line:84% I'd like to start by thanking students and those of you-- 00:05:09.810 --> 00:05:13.590 align:middle line:84% the mothers of students, even who 00:05:13.590 --> 00:05:19.860 align:middle line:84% saw that I got a welcome here in Tucson, a student who followed 00:05:19.860 --> 00:05:25.380 align:middle line:84% from El Paso, people who contributed card tables, 00:05:25.380 --> 00:05:28.920 align:middle line:84% and toasters, and plants, and have 00:05:28.920 --> 00:05:30.750 align:middle line:90% helped me get settled here. 00:05:30.750 --> 00:05:37.110 align:middle line:90% 00:05:37.110 --> 00:05:39.780 align:middle line:84% When I came here in 1977, I was coming 00:05:39.780 --> 00:05:43.560 align:middle line:84% from Port Angeles, Washington, which is where I was born. 00:05:43.560 --> 00:05:46.740 align:middle line:84% And I'll begin with a poem that I 00:05:46.740 --> 00:05:53.578 align:middle line:84% wrote for my father, which is in Instructions to the Double. 00:05:53.578 --> 00:05:57.410 align:middle line:90% 00:05:57.410 --> 00:05:59.135 align:middle line:84% It's kind of a portrait of this town. 00:05:59.135 --> 00:06:03.000 align:middle line:90% 00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:06.960 align:middle line:84% The black money mentioned has to do 00:06:06.960 --> 00:06:09.420 align:middle line:84% with how the money in his pockets 00:06:09.420 --> 00:06:13.410 align:middle line:84% was turned black by working in the sulfur pyramids 00:06:13.410 --> 00:06:18.420 align:middle line:90% that they use to refine paper. 00:06:18.420 --> 00:06:21.150 align:middle line:84% We lived right up the hill from a pulp mill. 00:06:21.150 --> 00:06:27.730 align:middle line:90% 00:06:27.730 --> 00:06:31.660 align:middle line:84% His lungs, heaving all day in a sulfur mist, 00:06:31.660 --> 00:06:35.380 align:middle line:84% then dusk, the lunch pail torn from him 00:06:35.380 --> 00:06:37.510 align:middle line:90% before he reaches the house. 00:06:37.510 --> 00:06:41.500 align:middle line:84% His children, a cloud of swallows about him. 00:06:41.500 --> 00:06:45.970 align:middle line:84% At the stove in the tumbled rooms, the wife, her back, 00:06:45.970 --> 00:06:47.980 align:middle line:90% the wall he fights most. 00:06:47.980 --> 00:06:50.530 align:middle line:84% And she, with no weapon but silence 00:06:50.530 --> 00:06:53.590 align:middle line:90% and to keep him from the bed. 00:06:53.590 --> 00:06:59.110 align:middle line:84% In their sleep, the mill hums and turns at the edge of water. 00:06:59.110 --> 00:07:01.750 align:middle line:90% Blue smoke swells the night. 00:07:01.750 --> 00:07:05.890 align:middle line:84% And they drift from the graves they have made for each other, 00:07:05.890 --> 00:07:10.090 align:middle line:84% float out from the open-mouth sleep of their children 00:07:10.090 --> 00:07:16.870 align:middle line:84% past banks and businesses, the used car lot, liquor store, 00:07:16.870 --> 00:07:19.600 align:middle line:90% the swings in the park. 00:07:19.600 --> 00:07:23.860 align:middle line:84% The mill burns on, now a burst of cinders, 00:07:23.860 --> 00:07:30.400 align:middle line:84% now whistles screaming down the bay, saws jagged in half light. 00:07:30.400 --> 00:07:33.310 align:middle line:84% Then, like a whip, the sun across the bed, 00:07:33.310 --> 00:07:35.530 align:middle line:90% windows high with mountains. 00:07:35.530 --> 00:07:39.280 align:middle line:84% And the sleepers fall into pillows as gulls 00:07:39.280 --> 00:07:44.530 align:middle line:84% fall, tilting against their shadows on the log booms. 00:07:44.530 --> 00:07:47.380 align:middle line:84% Again, the trucks shudder the wood-framed houses, 00:07:47.380 --> 00:07:48.760 align:middle line:90% passing to the mill. 00:07:48.760 --> 00:07:52.660 align:middle line:84% My father snorts, splashes in the bathroom, 00:07:52.660 --> 00:07:55.450 align:middle line:84% throws open our doors to cowboy music. 00:07:55.450 --> 00:07:57.940 align:middle line:84% On the radio, hearts are cheating. 00:07:57.940 --> 00:07:59.440 align:middle line:90% Somebody is alone. 00:07:59.440 --> 00:08:01.930 align:middle line:90% There's blood in Tulsa. 00:08:01.930 --> 00:08:04.630 align:middle line:84% Out the backyard, the nightshift men 00:08:04.630 --> 00:08:07.490 align:middle line:84% rattle the gravel in the alley, going home. 00:08:07.490 --> 00:08:10.810 align:middle line:84% My father fits goggles to his head. 00:08:10.810 --> 00:08:13.690 align:middle line:84% From his pocket, he takes anything metal-- 00:08:13.690 --> 00:08:18.970 align:middle line:84% the pearl-handled jackknife, a ring of keys, and, for us, 00:08:18.970 --> 00:08:22.180 align:middle line:84% black money shoveled from the sulfur pyramids 00:08:22.180 --> 00:08:25.210 align:middle line:84% heaped in the distance like yellow gold. 00:08:25.210 --> 00:08:27.550 align:middle line:84% Coffee bottle tucked in his armpit, 00:08:27.550 --> 00:08:29.890 align:middle line:84% he swaggers past the chicken coop, 00:08:29.890 --> 00:08:32.230 align:middle line:90% a pack of cards at his breast. 00:08:32.230 --> 00:08:36.070 align:middle line:84% In a fan of light beyond him, the Kino Maru 00:08:36.070 --> 00:08:40.150 align:middle line:84% pulls out for Seattle, some black star claiming 00:08:40.150 --> 00:08:42.159 align:middle line:90% the deep globe of his eye. 00:08:42.159 --> 00:08:46.400 align:middle line:90% 00:08:46.400 --> 00:08:51.690 align:middle line:84% To go now to a poem written while I was in El Paso-- 00:08:51.690 --> 00:08:54.630 align:middle line:84% I spent the last half of my Guggenheim 00:08:54.630 --> 00:08:57.150 align:middle line:90% down there on the border. 00:08:57.150 --> 00:09:01.120 align:middle line:84% And I was living in a kind of suburban neighborhood. 00:09:01.120 --> 00:09:03.870 align:middle line:84% In fact, I had my first introduction 00:09:03.870 --> 00:09:06.240 align:middle line:90% to the 20th century, I think-- 00:09:06.240 --> 00:09:10.260 align:middle line:84% officially, I had a dishwasher, even, 00:09:10.260 --> 00:09:12.720 align:middle line:84% which I told my students cut down on my singing. 00:09:12.720 --> 00:09:16.770 align:middle line:84% And so I got to resent it a little bit. 00:09:16.770 --> 00:09:19.920 align:middle line:84% I had a neighbor that I didn't meet 00:09:19.920 --> 00:09:22.830 align:middle line:84% until about the second week that I was there. 00:09:22.830 --> 00:09:26.610 align:middle line:84% And she made a great effort to come out in the backyard 00:09:26.610 --> 00:09:27.750 align:middle line:90% and meet me. 00:09:27.750 --> 00:09:32.210 align:middle line:90% 00:09:32.210 --> 00:09:35.540 align:middle line:84% It's called "Some with Wings, Some with Manes." 00:09:35.540 --> 00:09:38.550 align:middle line:90% 00:09:38.550 --> 00:09:44.220 align:middle line:84% Over the stone wall, her hand comes, each knuckle enlarged 00:09:44.220 --> 00:09:46.200 align:middle line:90% to a miniature skull. 00:09:46.200 --> 00:09:51.150 align:middle line:84% She reaches into my rented yard to call me neighbor. 00:09:51.150 --> 00:09:54.060 align:middle line:90% Sunlight dazzles her spectacles. 00:09:54.060 --> 00:09:56.940 align:middle line:84% And in the chromium glint of her walker, 00:09:56.940 --> 00:10:01.050 align:middle line:84% she is bright royalty on an errand of magnitude. 00:10:01.050 --> 00:10:06.120 align:middle line:84% An effort to stand, an effort to step the pain carefully 00:10:06.120 --> 00:10:11.700 align:middle line:84% around invisible parameters and, still, to say effort 00:10:11.700 --> 00:10:13.770 align:middle line:90% is nobility. 00:10:13.770 --> 00:10:16.650 align:middle line:84% Her hands are perfectly good for pointing. 00:10:16.650 --> 00:10:20.880 align:middle line:84% That small, bare tree near my walkway, if pruned, 00:10:20.880 --> 00:10:25.680 align:middle line:84% would be heavy with peaches the size of your fist by July. 00:10:25.680 --> 00:10:30.390 align:middle line:84% In new regard, I think what it could and will do. 00:10:30.390 --> 00:10:33.090 align:middle line:84% Then, not to demean its offering, 00:10:33.090 --> 00:10:37.260 align:middle line:84% keep the next thought, that I'll be gone by summer. 00:10:37.260 --> 00:10:41.850 align:middle line:84% She has the name of a workhorse I knew in Missouri, Dolly, 00:10:41.850 --> 00:10:45.450 align:middle line:84% and has outlived a sister to the same disease. 00:10:45.450 --> 00:10:46.930 align:middle line:90% She sat down with it. 00:10:46.930 --> 00:10:48.960 align:middle line:90% And that was the end of her. 00:10:48.960 --> 00:10:52.470 align:middle line:84% Such variations on reluctance caused me to see a kite, 00:10:52.470 --> 00:10:55.230 align:middle line:84% stubborn in a childhood pear tree, 00:10:55.230 --> 00:10:59.760 align:middle line:84% still abash in the wind with its complication of branches. 00:10:59.760 --> 00:11:04.710 align:middle line:84% I cited my days by its banners until the tree caressed it 00:11:04.710 --> 00:11:05.760 align:middle line:90% into flight. 00:11:05.760 --> 00:11:08.340 align:middle line:90% One day, I wasn't looking. 00:11:08.340 --> 00:11:10.290 align:middle line:84% For didn't the memory of the tree 00:11:10.290 --> 00:11:16.200 align:middle line:84% go with it, the shred of it, less articulate by then, 00:11:16.200 --> 00:11:19.560 align:middle line:84% a slip of motion longing to wrap itself 00:11:19.560 --> 00:11:23.360 align:middle line:84% in a tattered lunge at the whole air? 00:11:23.360 --> 00:11:27.470 align:middle line:84% After that, the tree said only the same thing other trees 00:11:27.470 --> 00:11:30.350 align:middle line:90% say before coming to fruit. 00:11:30.350 --> 00:11:34.160 align:middle line:84% Somehow, we knew in our child hearts, when a thing is ruined, 00:11:34.160 --> 00:11:38.450 align:middle line:84% not to meddle with ecstasy by setting it free. 00:11:38.450 --> 00:11:43.000 align:middle line:84% We left it, though it ruffles the mind yet. 00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:46.750 align:middle line:84% Sitting in the darkened afternoon of her living room, 00:11:46.750 --> 00:11:49.360 align:middle line:84% I hear the death of the only daughter, 00:11:49.360 --> 00:11:54.670 align:middle line:84% meet the husband who loves eggs and sweets, says little. 00:11:54.670 --> 00:11:57.970 align:middle line:84% I'm the last of my family, she says-- 00:11:57.970 --> 00:12:01.660 align:middle line:84% then, in the walker, leads me down the grassy corridor 00:12:01.660 --> 00:12:04.810 align:middle line:84% to a room sleeping like a princess. 00:12:04.810 --> 00:12:09.220 align:middle line:84% The spell, I see, is in the elaborate coverlet. 00:12:09.220 --> 00:12:11.750 align:middle line:90% She will teach me how to do it. 00:12:11.750 --> 00:12:15.820 align:middle line:84% It took me 14 months of evenings, the hands 00:12:15.820 --> 00:12:18.580 align:middle line:84% now going out to the stitched pieces, 00:12:18.580 --> 00:12:21.310 align:middle line:90% remembering they have done this. 00:12:21.310 --> 00:12:25.390 align:middle line:84% I know I will never do it, will be gone by summer. 00:12:25.390 --> 00:12:27.310 align:middle line:90% What is it called? 00:12:27.310 --> 00:12:30.460 align:middle line:90% Cathedral windows, she says. 00:12:30.460 --> 00:12:35.680 align:middle line:84% And the raised light of her hands falls over me. 00:12:35.680 --> 00:12:38.845 align:middle line:84% Well, I didn't know whether to show this poem to her or not. 00:12:38.845 --> 00:12:41.432 align:middle line:90% 00:12:41.432 --> 00:12:43.390 align:middle line:84% One day, I came home with my sack of groceries. 00:12:43.390 --> 00:12:45.015 align:middle line:84% And she was sitting out in the carport. 00:12:45.015 --> 00:12:47.140 align:middle line:90% And she said, come over here. 00:12:47.140 --> 00:12:48.040 align:middle line:90% And I came over. 00:12:48.040 --> 00:12:50.320 align:middle line:84% And she said, I have something for you. 00:12:50.320 --> 00:12:51.820 align:middle line:84% She sent her husband into the house. 00:12:51.820 --> 00:12:53.380 align:middle line:90% And her husband came out. 00:12:53.380 --> 00:12:57.730 align:middle line:84% She says, I've made you a pattern of cathedral windows. 00:12:57.730 --> 00:13:03.940 align:middle line:84% [CHUCKLES] And she has it all pinned together here. 00:13:03.940 --> 00:13:07.440 align:middle line:84% So I thought, well, I guess I'd better show her this poem. 00:13:07.440 --> 00:13:10.690 align:middle line:84% [LAUGHS] So I said, well, I have something for you, too. 00:13:10.690 --> 00:13:12.120 align:middle line:90% And I went back, and I got it. 00:13:12.120 --> 00:13:15.480 align:middle line:84% And by then, another neighbor of ours had come over 00:13:15.480 --> 00:13:16.950 align:middle line:90% and was standing in the carport. 00:13:16.950 --> 00:13:20.250 align:middle line:84% And I was then very embarrassed because she said, well, 00:13:20.250 --> 00:13:21.630 align:middle line:90% would you read it to me? 00:13:21.630 --> 00:13:26.460 align:middle line:84% So I gave my first carport poetry reading in Texas. 00:13:26.460 --> 00:13:28.020 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:13:28.020 --> 00:13:32.520 align:middle line:84% And the woman across the street wanted a copy of it. 00:13:32.520 --> 00:13:37.227 align:middle line:84% And it was a really wonderful experience. 00:13:37.227 --> 00:13:39.060 align:middle line:84% I think, maybe, we should have more of them. 00:13:39.060 --> 00:13:43.410 align:middle line:90% 00:13:43.410 --> 00:13:46.650 align:middle line:84% But I was afraid the husband would be insulted 00:13:46.650 --> 00:13:49.230 align:middle line:90% by his part in the poem. 00:13:49.230 --> 00:13:51.510 align:middle line:90% But he seemed pleased, too. 00:13:51.510 --> 00:14:04.530 align:middle line:90% 00:14:04.530 --> 00:14:09.270 align:middle line:90% The next poem is a little-- 00:14:09.270 --> 00:14:11.820 align:middle line:84% well, you know how you have objects, sometimes, 00:14:11.820 --> 00:14:16.830 align:middle line:84% that get endowed with magic, such special significance, 00:14:16.830 --> 00:14:20.160 align:middle line:84% and you don't know how they exactly got that way? 00:14:20.160 --> 00:14:21.780 align:middle line:84% Well, and even things that belong 00:14:21.780 --> 00:14:23.910 align:middle line:84% to other people-- sometimes this happens to me, 00:14:23.910 --> 00:14:26.910 align:middle line:84% that I get attached to things that other people have 00:14:26.910 --> 00:14:31.410 align:middle line:84% in a certain way that, maybe, they're not even attached. 00:14:31.410 --> 00:14:35.235 align:middle line:84% This is called "I Save Your Coat, But You Lose it Later." 00:14:35.235 --> 00:14:40.660 align:middle line:90% 00:14:40.660 --> 00:14:44.910 align:middle line:84% It was a coat worth keeping, even with you in no condition 00:14:44.910 --> 00:14:48.180 align:middle line:84% to keep track, your mind important to things 00:14:48.180 --> 00:14:50.370 align:middle line:90% you were seeing out the window. 00:14:50.370 --> 00:14:54.090 align:middle line:84% We had changed seats on the bus so a little breeze 00:14:54.090 --> 00:14:56.490 align:middle line:90% could catch our faces. 00:14:56.490 --> 00:15:00.570 align:middle line:84% The coat was back there, in a spot of sunlight, 00:15:00.570 --> 00:15:05.760 align:middle line:84% its leather smell making a halo of invitation around it. 00:15:05.760 --> 00:15:10.240 align:middle line:84% We got off near the planetarium and were heading for stars. 00:15:10.240 --> 00:15:12.900 align:middle line:84% Just to make one eye do the work of two 00:15:12.900 --> 00:15:17.100 align:middle line:84% and bring back ghost light was making us forgetful. 00:15:17.100 --> 00:15:22.530 align:middle line:84% Then I looked at you, strange without your coat, which 00:15:22.530 --> 00:15:27.150 align:middle line:84% I knew you loved and had paid an incredible price for, 00:15:27.150 --> 00:15:29.940 align:middle line:84% as if you had tried to buy something 00:15:29.940 --> 00:15:32.520 align:middle line:90% that would make you sorry. 00:15:32.520 --> 00:15:36.810 align:middle line:84% The bus was worrying itself into traffic, its passengers locked 00:15:36.810 --> 00:15:38.280 align:middle line:90% into destinations. 00:15:38.280 --> 00:15:42.150 align:middle line:84% I ran with everyone until they stopped in their seats. 00:15:42.150 --> 00:15:45.090 align:middle line:84% There was your coat, a big interruption 00:15:45.090 --> 00:15:47.460 align:middle line:90% in everybody's destination. 00:15:47.460 --> 00:15:50.490 align:middle line:84% When I picked it up, it scalded my hand 00:15:50.490 --> 00:15:53.490 align:middle line:84% like an unbearable red I saw once 00:15:53.490 --> 00:15:57.080 align:middle line:90% on a woman coming toward me. 00:15:57.080 --> 00:16:01.100 align:middle line:84% We had a 40-year reunion right there on the street, 00:16:01.100 --> 00:16:05.540 align:middle line:84% as if the coat had met us again in its afterlife. 00:16:05.540 --> 00:16:10.460 align:middle line:84% We were that glad, hugging it between us. 00:16:10.460 --> 00:16:14.420 align:middle line:84% Then you put it on and checked yourself in the store window, 00:16:14.420 --> 00:16:18.080 align:middle line:84% wearing, yourself, those moments to see forgiveness 00:16:18.080 --> 00:16:22.430 align:middle line:84% take your shape, then catching in the light of those walking 00:16:22.430 --> 00:16:23.690 align:middle line:90% through you. 00:16:23.690 --> 00:16:25.760 align:middle line:90% I suppose it was gratitude. 00:16:25.760 --> 00:16:27.740 align:middle line:84% You're wearing it with telescopes, 00:16:27.740 --> 00:16:31.490 align:middle line:84% me putting my hand in your pocket, pretending to rob you 00:16:31.490 --> 00:16:33.620 align:middle line:84% while you looked, for the first time, 00:16:33.620 --> 00:16:36.560 align:middle line:90% at the four moons of Jupiter. 00:16:36.560 --> 00:16:39.200 align:middle line:84% Some weeks later, you write your coat 00:16:39.200 --> 00:16:43.220 align:middle line:84% was stolen after a long night of drinking and music. 00:16:43.220 --> 00:16:45.230 align:middle line:90% They took all your money. 00:16:45.230 --> 00:16:47.990 align:middle line:90% You never saw it again. 00:16:47.990 --> 00:16:50.750 align:middle line:84% I am in a state of mourning for your coat 00:16:50.750 --> 00:16:54.920 align:middle line:84% which traveled with us that while like a close relative 00:16:54.920 --> 00:16:58.710 align:middle line:84% concealing a fatal illness in the last visit. 00:16:58.710 --> 00:17:02.390 align:middle line:84% I remember a heart doctor who saved a man for 10 hours 00:17:02.390 --> 00:17:07.010 align:middle line:84% so his wife disappeared into hope and would not come back, 00:17:07.010 --> 00:17:10.040 align:middle line:84% and would not take her lips from his until they 00:17:10.040 --> 00:17:11.690 align:middle line:90% wheeled him away. 00:17:11.690 --> 00:17:17.119 align:middle line:84% I make too much of this, your coat which, stolen or lost, 00:17:17.119 --> 00:17:20.705 align:middle line:84% did not belong to me, which I never wore. 00:17:20.705 --> 00:17:34.570 align:middle line:90% 00:17:34.570 --> 00:17:36.880 align:middle line:84% Yeah, I'm not only fond of coats. 00:17:36.880 --> 00:17:38.110 align:middle line:90% I'm fond of shirts. 00:17:38.110 --> 00:17:42.490 align:middle line:84% And the next one is called "The Shirts." 00:17:42.490 --> 00:17:45.420 align:middle line:90% It's a love poem. 00:17:45.420 --> 00:17:48.510 align:middle line:84% Sometimes you try to write a love poem to many men. 00:17:48.510 --> 00:17:52.770 align:middle line:84% This is a love home to many men, "The Shirts." 00:17:52.770 --> 00:17:55.980 align:middle line:90% 00:17:55.980 --> 00:17:59.490 align:middle line:84% They would be ashamed to see, back at us, 00:17:59.490 --> 00:18:02.780 align:middle line:90% themselves among the others. 00:18:02.780 --> 00:18:06.290 align:middle line:84% I have done this, have hung them side by side. 00:18:06.290 --> 00:18:07.370 align:middle line:90% Did I ask this? 00:18:07.370 --> 00:18:08.690 align:middle line:90% Or did they come to me? 00:18:08.690 --> 00:18:14.920 align:middle line:84% And what can it mean, that I keep their shapes without them? 00:18:14.920 --> 00:18:19.170 align:middle line:84% They are all colors, and one has thin stripes with lavender. 00:18:19.170 --> 00:18:23.220 align:middle line:84% My hands, from the sleeves, are another's, reminding. 00:18:23.220 --> 00:18:29.550 align:middle line:84% And the small, exact musculature of his arms takes on my body. 00:18:29.550 --> 00:18:34.830 align:middle line:84% When I left, he said, take this until I see you next. 00:18:34.830 --> 00:18:39.150 align:middle line:84% Much later, he would tell her name, the woman who bought it. 00:18:39.150 --> 00:18:42.810 align:middle line:84% It's changed face, where my breasts force out, 00:18:42.810 --> 00:18:47.510 align:middle line:84% and the one thought, our size, the same. 00:18:47.510 --> 00:18:49.940 align:middle line:84% The green one, like the moss light 00:18:49.940 --> 00:18:54.930 align:middle line:84% of lovers on the forest floor, its shoulders too broad, 00:18:54.930 --> 00:18:58.040 align:middle line:90% the collar sharp with intention. 00:18:58.040 --> 00:19:01.280 align:middle line:84% Flannel, the fur of winter, fires 00:19:01.280 --> 00:19:05.210 align:middle line:84% that light up the forehead and cast the eyes and shadow. 00:19:05.210 --> 00:19:09.830 align:middle line:84% In it, I am the young girl whose protector fills her with dread 00:19:09.830 --> 00:19:11.660 align:middle line:90% and does not return. 00:19:11.660 --> 00:19:16.590 align:middle line:84% Its caution, don't wear this when you meet her. 00:19:16.590 --> 00:19:17.610 align:middle line:90% This one is blue. 00:19:17.610 --> 00:19:20.160 align:middle line:84% And the man of it had eyes like that. 00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:23.380 align:middle line:84% Blue, I said, send me some good books, 00:19:23.380 --> 00:19:25.920 align:middle line:90% I want to know how you think. 00:19:25.920 --> 00:19:28.530 align:middle line:84% He had a lot of shirts like this one. 00:19:28.530 --> 00:19:33.570 align:middle line:84% When I took it, he could not miss it as the special one. 00:19:33.570 --> 00:19:36.810 align:middle line:84% Only this have I given back, the red one, 00:19:36.810 --> 00:19:40.950 align:middle line:84% the one with a blotch of pitch that would not wash out. 00:19:40.950 --> 00:19:44.110 align:middle line:84% Fire shirt of the question, will it end? 00:19:44.110 --> 00:19:48.390 align:middle line:84% Man with a passion to burn his love out in me nightly, 00:19:48.390 --> 00:19:51.660 align:middle line:84% daily, the white hot tongues of love. 00:19:51.660 --> 00:19:55.530 align:middle line:84% He wears it to breakfast, wants pure maple syrup. 00:19:55.530 --> 00:19:58.140 align:middle line:90% He likes the pitcher full. 00:19:58.140 --> 00:20:00.330 align:middle line:90% He can stand the sweetness. 00:20:00.330 --> 00:20:11.820 align:middle line:90% 00:20:11.820 --> 00:20:13.980 align:middle line:84% The next poem is a kind of story poem. 00:20:13.980 --> 00:20:19.190 align:middle line:84% I've been seeing that I can follow out 00:20:19.190 --> 00:20:22.760 align:middle line:84% voices if I can get them started, 00:20:22.760 --> 00:20:25.800 align:middle line:90% little animated scenes. 00:20:25.800 --> 00:20:27.560 align:middle line:84% I don't know where they're going, often. 00:20:27.560 --> 00:20:29.210 align:middle line:90% I just follow them out. 00:20:29.210 --> 00:20:35.540 align:middle line:84% And this one, in it, I have the scene in my head 00:20:35.540 --> 00:20:37.310 align:middle line:90% that two women are meeting. 00:20:37.310 --> 00:20:44.090 align:middle line:84% And they haven't known one another in a long while. 00:20:44.090 --> 00:20:47.300 align:middle line:84% And one of them's had a very turbulent life 00:20:47.300 --> 00:20:49.250 align:middle line:90% in which she's still living in. 00:20:49.250 --> 00:20:54.230 align:middle line:84% And the other one has, perhaps, lived more, quote, "normally." 00:20:54.230 --> 00:20:56.820 align:middle line:90% 00:20:56.820 --> 00:20:58.035 align:middle line:90% It's called "Second Sleep." 00:20:58.035 --> 00:21:01.880 align:middle line:90% 00:21:01.880 --> 00:21:05.270 align:middle line:84% We had been gone a long while, though she 00:21:05.270 --> 00:21:07.610 align:middle line:90% had written once or twice. 00:21:07.610 --> 00:21:10.490 align:middle line:84% They say your man keeps guns, I said. 00:21:10.490 --> 00:21:13.970 align:middle line:84% She bent her head, then looked out over the water. 00:21:13.970 --> 00:21:16.550 align:middle line:90% The war, you know, she said. 00:21:16.550 --> 00:21:18.890 align:middle line:84% As I knew you before, I said, you 00:21:18.890 --> 00:21:22.130 align:middle line:84% would have called yourself out of this. 00:21:22.130 --> 00:21:25.010 align:middle line:84% That woman, I've seen her, she said, 00:21:25.010 --> 00:21:27.290 align:middle line:84% and fastened the throat of her shirt. 00:21:27.290 --> 00:21:29.750 align:middle line:84% She came often in the first months. 00:21:29.750 --> 00:21:32.480 align:middle line:84% Don't come in, I told her, all the guns 00:21:32.480 --> 00:21:34.870 align:middle line:90% are loaded in this house. 00:21:34.870 --> 00:21:36.880 align:middle line:84% Once, she came close to the window 00:21:36.880 --> 00:21:39.670 align:middle line:84% so that I got the drawer of his desk open. 00:21:39.670 --> 00:21:43.240 align:middle line:90% The metal was cold to my hand. 00:21:43.240 --> 00:21:44.600 align:middle line:90% I went with her. 00:21:44.600 --> 00:21:48.370 align:middle line:84% It was only after we walked deep into the sword ferns 00:21:48.370 --> 00:21:52.930 align:middle line:84% that she turned, and I saw the perfect blood bead on her brow. 00:21:52.930 --> 00:21:55.930 align:middle line:84% She walked back to me the way you walked back 00:21:55.930 --> 00:21:59.140 align:middle line:84% to a child that doesn't trust where you're going. 00:21:59.140 --> 00:22:02.260 align:middle line:84% She lifted my hand to the wet pit. 00:22:02.260 --> 00:22:05.140 align:middle line:90% There, she said, there. 00:22:05.140 --> 00:22:06.850 align:middle line:90% Her look was sure. 00:22:06.850 --> 00:22:11.650 align:middle line:84% She took the fingers one by one and sucked them dry. 00:22:11.650 --> 00:22:15.970 align:middle line:84% Sometimes he asks about it, that gun he can't find. 00:22:15.970 --> 00:22:17.710 align:middle line:90% I can't account for it. 00:22:17.710 --> 00:22:20.290 align:middle line:84% He thinks I sold it for some pleasure 00:22:20.290 --> 00:22:23.890 align:middle line:84% secret I've kept from him or given it to a lover, 00:22:23.890 --> 00:22:27.160 align:middle line:84% the one who will break in on us like a wronged husband 00:22:27.160 --> 00:22:29.560 align:middle line:90% and kill us, naked, in our bed. 00:22:29.560 --> 00:22:32.110 align:middle line:90% He sleeps with his clothes on. 00:22:32.110 --> 00:22:35.690 align:middle line:84% Often, he dresses me in my sleep. 00:22:35.690 --> 00:22:39.580 align:middle line:84% I woke this morning in my furs, the black seal which 00:22:39.580 --> 00:22:41.470 align:middle line:90% may not be worn in public. 00:22:41.470 --> 00:22:43.240 align:middle line:90% Wake up, I said. 00:22:43.240 --> 00:22:45.280 align:middle line:90% I felt so tender for him. 00:22:45.280 --> 00:22:46.990 align:middle line:90% I opened the coat. 00:22:46.990 --> 00:22:49.000 align:middle line:90% I lay on top of him. 00:22:49.000 --> 00:22:52.900 align:middle line:84% His work shirt smelled of pitch and beer. 00:22:52.900 --> 00:22:55.870 align:middle line:84% There's only you, I said, all the time 00:22:55.870 --> 00:22:57.790 align:middle line:90% thinking it could be done. 00:22:57.790 --> 00:23:01.150 align:middle line:84% I could do it myself, even loving him. 00:23:01.150 --> 00:23:03.100 align:middle line:90% I took off his clothes. 00:23:03.100 --> 00:23:05.830 align:middle line:90% I woke him a little while. 00:23:05.830 --> 00:23:08.530 align:middle line:84% Later, in my second sleep, I could hear 00:23:08.530 --> 00:23:11.020 align:middle line:90% him knocking at the baseboards. 00:23:11.020 --> 00:23:11.860 align:middle line:90% Where is it? 00:23:11.860 --> 00:23:12.490 align:middle line:90% He says. 00:23:12.490 --> 00:23:13.690 align:middle line:90% You must know. 00:23:13.690 --> 00:23:15.820 align:middle line:90% I get up in my fur coat. 00:23:15.820 --> 00:23:18.940 align:middle line:84% I get down on my knees on the wood floor. 00:23:18.940 --> 00:23:21.280 align:middle line:90% I don't, I tell him. 00:23:21.280 --> 00:23:23.380 align:middle line:84% It is the right thing to be missing. 00:23:23.380 --> 00:23:26.470 align:middle line:84% We keep looking, turning over the house. 00:23:26.470 --> 00:23:29.380 align:middle line:84% And I am full of pity and love for him. 00:23:29.380 --> 00:23:32.650 align:middle line:84% All this to make a fear that would keep us. 00:23:32.650 --> 00:23:35.080 align:middle line:90% Could you love a man like that? 00:23:35.080 --> 00:23:37.345 align:middle line:84% Where have you been all these years? 00:23:37.345 --> 00:23:47.790 align:middle line:90% 00:23:47.790 --> 00:23:55.020 align:middle line:84% When I was making my way back to poetry, in about 1970, 00:23:55.020 --> 00:23:59.350 align:middle line:84% after living five years in the South, 00:23:59.350 --> 00:24:01.960 align:middle line:90% I began to work for a blind man. 00:24:01.960 --> 00:24:05.680 align:middle line:84% And I worked very long days with him, 10-hour days. 00:24:05.680 --> 00:24:07.540 align:middle line:84% We worked for the police department 00:24:07.540 --> 00:24:09.430 align:middle line:90% in Seattle, Washington. 00:24:09.430 --> 00:24:11.890 align:middle line:84% And it was a very fine apprentice for a poet 00:24:11.890 --> 00:24:17.680 align:middle line:84% because you had to develop great powers of empathy, 00:24:17.680 --> 00:24:20.440 align:middle line:90% to think what he would need. 00:24:20.440 --> 00:24:22.270 align:middle line:84% And after we'd worked some time together, 00:24:22.270 --> 00:24:25.510 align:middle line:84% he asked, one day, if he could feel my face, if he 00:24:25.510 --> 00:24:28.300 align:middle line:90% could see what I looked like. 00:24:28.300 --> 00:24:30.085 align:middle line:90% And I said he could. 00:24:30.085 --> 00:24:34.390 align:middle line:84% This is "The Hands of the Blind Man." 00:24:34.390 --> 00:24:37.060 align:middle line:84% In the square room without windows, 00:24:37.060 --> 00:24:40.240 align:middle line:84% where the hours fill our pockets with soft money, 00:24:40.240 --> 00:24:42.310 align:middle line:90% you reach for simple things-- 00:24:42.310 --> 00:24:46.930 align:middle line:84% the circle of ash; the cup, its warm, liquid eye; 00:24:46.930 --> 00:24:51.850 align:middle line:84% the telephone, its knowing that voices are always blind. 00:24:51.850 --> 00:24:56.150 align:middle line:84% Walking from work, you wave fire past your cigarette. 00:24:56.150 --> 00:24:58.840 align:middle line:84% There is the hand of a stranger, now 00:24:58.840 --> 00:25:02.110 align:middle line:90% the muzzles of dogs, the rain. 00:25:02.110 --> 00:25:06.820 align:middle line:84% Touching my face once, you were the rain, the stranger. 00:25:06.820 --> 00:25:11.185 align:middle line:84% Yet never did anyone, in the dark, leave hands on me as you. 00:25:11.185 --> 00:25:17.090 align:middle line:90% 00:25:17.090 --> 00:25:21.720 align:middle line:84% We'll go back to Instructions to the Double for a moment 00:25:21.720 --> 00:25:28.370 align:middle line:90% and read a poem about a-- 00:25:28.370 --> 00:25:29.630 align:middle line:90% it has a horse in it. 00:25:29.630 --> 00:25:33.020 align:middle line:84% I want to introduce a recent poem, which has a horse in it. 00:25:33.020 --> 00:25:35.720 align:middle line:90% 00:25:35.720 --> 00:25:42.910 align:middle line:84% This was written at St. Lawrence University, 00:25:42.910 --> 00:25:45.490 align:middle line:84% about 18 miles from St. Lawrence River, 00:25:45.490 --> 00:25:48.910 align:middle line:90% upstate New York, lots of snow. 00:25:48.910 --> 00:25:53.076 align:middle line:84% And the title, consequently, is "Snow Heart." 00:25:53.076 --> 00:25:55.280 align:middle line:84% You don't need to be worried, in this poem, 00:25:55.280 --> 00:26:03.110 align:middle line:84% about following it in a real narrative sense. 00:26:03.110 --> 00:26:04.310 align:middle line:90% It's more like a song. 00:26:04.310 --> 00:26:05.930 align:middle line:84% You just have to kind of leap with it. 00:26:05.930 --> 00:26:09.590 align:middle line:90% 00:26:09.590 --> 00:26:14.330 align:middle line:84% In our houses, the snow keeps us traveling. 00:26:14.330 --> 00:26:17.960 align:middle line:84% It says, your life is where you are. 00:26:17.960 --> 00:26:21.680 align:middle line:84% The phone, all day ringing by itself over the next lot, 00:26:21.680 --> 00:26:23.570 align:middle line:90% isn't for you. 00:26:23.570 --> 00:26:28.070 align:middle line:84% The man with a perfect haircut makes a track across the lawn, 00:26:28.070 --> 00:26:31.250 align:middle line:90% holding his books like a breast. 00:26:31.250 --> 00:26:36.080 align:middle line:84% Snow Heart, you have said, don't cut your black hair. 00:26:36.080 --> 00:26:37.640 align:middle line:90% Love's the only death. 00:26:37.640 --> 00:26:39.980 align:middle line:84% He's up again and riding the best mare, 00:26:39.980 --> 00:26:43.070 align:middle line:84% 10 miles by moonlight, the spruce-backed fiddle 00:26:43.070 --> 00:26:44.660 align:middle line:90% under his arm. 00:26:44.660 --> 00:26:46.730 align:middle line:90% Dance us the next one, too. 00:26:46.730 --> 00:26:49.370 align:middle line:90% If day comes, don't tell. 00:26:49.370 --> 00:26:52.260 align:middle line:90% Let the horse go home alone. 00:26:52.260 --> 00:26:56.880 align:middle line:84% Snow Heart, someone's horse, circles the near house. 00:26:56.880 --> 00:26:59.025 align:middle line:90% There is snow on its back. 00:26:59.025 --> 00:27:03.014 align:middle line:90% 00:27:03.014 --> 00:27:06.800 align:middle line:84% This is a new poem that Michael Cuddihy 00:27:06.800 --> 00:27:12.100 align:middle line:84% is going to publish in Ironwood, called "From Dread 00:27:12.100 --> 00:27:14.050 align:middle line:90% in the Eyes of Horses." 00:27:14.050 --> 00:27:15.910 align:middle line:84% I think it might help you to know 00:27:15.910 --> 00:27:21.225 align:middle line:84% that the ridge of yellow horses is a place where 00:27:21.225 --> 00:27:24.630 align:middle line:84% a Russian stumbled onto a band of horses that were still 00:27:24.630 --> 00:27:25.905 align:middle line:90% in the prehistoric state. 00:27:25.905 --> 00:27:30.290 align:middle line:90% 00:27:30.290 --> 00:27:32.120 align:middle line:90% I got to reading about horses. 00:27:32.120 --> 00:27:38.780 align:middle line:84% And I found out that the Arabs love their young foals 00:27:38.780 --> 00:27:41.360 align:middle line:84% so much that they bring them right into the house. 00:27:41.360 --> 00:27:43.980 align:middle line:84% And they're in the charge of women. 00:27:43.980 --> 00:27:47.160 align:middle line:84% So I got some imaginings going about this. 00:27:47.160 --> 00:27:51.200 align:middle line:84% And I think that's what the poem grows out of. 00:27:51.200 --> 00:27:55.040 align:middle line:84% Also, some childhood experiences with horses-- 00:27:55.040 --> 00:27:58.520 align:middle line:84% my grandfather raised horses and was a great horse trader down 00:27:58.520 --> 00:28:00.620 align:middle line:90% in Missouri, in the Ozarks. 00:28:00.620 --> 00:28:03.260 align:middle line:84% I spent my childhood summers down there. 00:28:03.260 --> 00:28:07.280 align:middle line:84% And I always used to marvel at how you would go and get 00:28:07.280 --> 00:28:08.270 align:middle line:90% the horses. 00:28:08.270 --> 00:28:11.720 align:middle line:84% And my uncle would insist on riding them around the field 00:28:11.720 --> 00:28:14.300 align:middle line:84% before he would let any of his children 00:28:14.300 --> 00:28:16.820 align:middle line:84% get up there on the horses' backs. 00:28:16.820 --> 00:28:20.840 align:middle line:84% And I said, well, why do you get your ride first? 00:28:20.840 --> 00:28:23.300 align:middle line:84% I wanted to ride the horse first. 00:28:23.300 --> 00:28:27.410 align:middle line:84% And he said, well, it hasn't been ridden in a few days. 00:28:27.410 --> 00:28:30.707 align:middle line:84% And this way in which horses got wild so quickly-- 00:28:30.707 --> 00:28:32.540 align:middle line:84% because if they hadn't been ridden in, even, 00:28:32.540 --> 00:28:36.980 align:middle line:84% one or two days, the way they would go back to that wildness. 00:28:36.980 --> 00:28:40.520 align:middle line:84% "From Dread in the Eyes of Horses"-- 00:28:40.520 --> 00:28:45.500 align:middle line:84% eggs, dates, and camel's milk, give this. 00:28:45.500 --> 00:28:47.720 align:middle line:84% In one hour, the foal will stand. 00:28:47.720 --> 00:28:49.460 align:middle line:90% In two, it will run. 00:28:49.460 --> 00:28:53.330 align:middle line:84% The care, then, of women, the schooling from fear, 00:28:53.330 --> 00:28:57.710 align:middle line:84% clamor of household, a prospect of saddles. 00:28:57.710 --> 00:29:02.300 align:middle line:84% They kneel to it, folded on it's four perfect legs, stroke 00:29:02.300 --> 00:29:06.500 align:middle line:84% the good back, the muscles bunched at the chest, its head, 00:29:06.500 --> 00:29:09.020 align:middle line:84% how the wheel shines large in it, 00:29:09.020 --> 00:29:12.630 align:middle line:84% as what may be used to overcome it. 00:29:12.630 --> 00:29:16.980 align:middle line:84% The women of the horses comb out their cruel histories 00:29:16.980 --> 00:29:20.190 align:middle line:84% of hair only for the pleasure of horses, 00:29:20.190 --> 00:29:23.700 align:middle line:84% for the lost mares on the ridge of yellow horses, 00:29:23.700 --> 00:29:26.310 align:middle line:84% their white arms praying the hair, 00:29:26.310 --> 00:29:29.370 align:middle line:90% down breasts ordinary as knees. 00:29:29.370 --> 00:29:34.230 align:middle line:84% The extent of their power, this intimation of sexual wealth. 00:29:34.230 --> 00:29:38.190 align:middle line:84% From dread, in the eyes of horses, are taken their songs. 00:29:38.190 --> 00:29:41.160 align:middle line:84% In the white forest, the last free horses 00:29:41.160 --> 00:29:44.850 align:middle line:84% eat branches and roots, are hunted like deer 00:29:44.850 --> 00:29:47.410 align:middle line:90% and carry no one. 00:29:47.410 --> 00:29:50.980 align:middle line:84% A wedge of light where the doorway opens, the room. 00:29:50.980 --> 00:29:54.700 align:middle line:84% In it, a sickness of sleep, the arms 00:29:54.700 --> 00:29:57.820 align:middle line:84% of the women, their coarse, white hair. 00:29:57.820 --> 00:30:02.590 align:middle line:84% In a bank of sunlight, a man whitewashes the house he owns-- 00:30:02.590 --> 00:30:05.650 align:middle line:90% no shores, no worlds above it. 00:30:05.650 --> 00:30:10.690 align:middle line:84% And farther-- shrill, obsidian, the high feasting 00:30:10.690 --> 00:30:11.545 align:middle line:90% of the horses. 00:30:11.545 --> 00:30:21.660 align:middle line:90% 00:30:21.660 --> 00:30:24.287 align:middle line:84% I had an unfortunate thing happen 00:30:24.287 --> 00:30:26.370 align:middle line:84% before I got here in that my house was vandalized. 00:30:26.370 --> 00:30:31.020 align:middle line:84% It was the oddest housewarming one could expect. 00:30:31.020 --> 00:30:35.140 align:middle line:84% It was the first house that I ever owned. 00:30:35.140 --> 00:30:41.890 align:middle line:84% And so I felt really undone by this aspect of ownership. 00:30:41.890 --> 00:30:46.230 align:middle line:84% And so I've been trying to cheer this house up ever since. 00:30:46.230 --> 00:30:51.420 align:middle line:84% And I had a young man helping me paint. 00:30:51.420 --> 00:30:53.300 align:middle line:84% He got there very early in the morning. 00:30:53.300 --> 00:30:56.340 align:middle line:84% It was about 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning. 00:30:56.340 --> 00:30:58.680 align:middle line:84% And he was painting while I was still asleep. 00:30:58.680 --> 00:31:02.190 align:middle line:84% And the notion of his paint brush going against the house 00:31:02.190 --> 00:31:06.160 align:middle line:84% while I was still asleep got me into this poem. 00:31:06.160 --> 00:31:07.890 align:middle line:90% It's called "Willingly." 00:31:07.890 --> 00:31:10.730 align:middle line:90% 00:31:10.730 --> 00:31:13.370 align:middle line:84% When I get up, he has been long at work, 00:31:13.370 --> 00:31:17.120 align:middle line:84% his brush limber against the house before sunrise. 00:31:17.120 --> 00:31:19.880 align:middle line:84% Seeing him on his ladder, under the eaves, 00:31:19.880 --> 00:31:23.090 align:middle line:84% I look back on myself, asleep in the dream 00:31:23.090 --> 00:31:25.550 align:middle line:90% I could not carry awake. 00:31:25.550 --> 00:31:28.730 align:middle line:84% Sleep inside a house that is being painted. 00:31:28.730 --> 00:31:31.880 align:middle line:84% Whole lifetimes, now only the familiar cast 00:31:31.880 --> 00:31:35.240 align:middle line:84% of morning light over the prayer plant, as if to say, 00:31:35.240 --> 00:31:39.020 align:middle line:84% this is something new, of where you have been. 00:31:39.020 --> 00:31:42.800 align:middle line:84% What was settled or unsettled in sleep stays there. 00:31:42.800 --> 00:31:47.000 align:middle line:84% But your house, under his steady arm, is leaving itself. 00:31:47.000 --> 00:31:49.760 align:middle line:84% And you see that the surface of new light, 00:31:49.760 --> 00:31:54.470 align:middle line:84% covering gradually your sleep, has the greater power. 00:31:54.470 --> 00:31:57.980 align:middle line:84% You think now you felt brush strokes or the space 00:31:57.980 --> 00:32:00.830 align:middle line:84% between them, emotion bearing down 00:32:00.830 --> 00:32:04.040 align:middle line:84% on you like an accumulation of stars, 00:32:04.040 --> 00:32:06.440 align:middle line:84% each night of them arranging over 00:32:06.440 --> 00:32:09.200 align:middle line:90% the roofs of entire cities. 00:32:09.200 --> 00:32:14.120 align:middle line:84% His careful strokes whiten the web, the swirl of woodgrain 00:32:14.120 --> 00:32:18.540 align:middle line:84% that will be blotted out like a breath stopped at the heart. 00:32:18.540 --> 00:32:21.620 align:middle line:84% Nothing has changed, you say faithlessly. 00:32:21.620 --> 00:32:24.980 align:middle line:84% But something has cleansed your past recognition. 00:32:24.980 --> 00:32:27.500 align:middle line:84% When you stand near his ladder, looking up, 00:32:27.500 --> 00:32:29.480 align:middle line:90% he does not acknowledge you. 00:32:29.480 --> 00:32:32.180 align:middle line:84% And you see, as from daylight in a dream, 00:32:32.180 --> 00:32:35.840 align:middle line:84% your house has passed from you into the blessed hands 00:32:35.840 --> 00:32:37.260 align:middle line:90% of others. 00:32:37.260 --> 00:32:42.020 align:middle line:84% This is ownership, you think, arriving in the heady afterlife 00:32:42.020 --> 00:32:43.790 align:middle line:90% of paint smell. 00:32:43.790 --> 00:32:46.700 align:middle line:90% A deep opening goes on in you. 00:32:46.700 --> 00:32:50.270 align:middle line:84% Some paint has dropped onto your shoulder as though light 00:32:50.270 --> 00:32:53.060 align:middle line:90% concealed an unsuspected weight. 00:32:53.060 --> 00:32:56.000 align:middle line:84% You think it has fallen through you. 00:32:56.000 --> 00:32:58.460 align:middle line:84% You think you have agreed to this. 00:32:58.460 --> 00:33:01.610 align:middle line:84% What has been done with your life, willingly? 00:33:01.610 --> 00:33:06.400 align:middle line:90% 00:33:06.400 --> 00:33:09.700 align:middle line:84% The next poem is a poem I want to read because I 00:33:09.700 --> 00:33:11.185 align:middle line:90% like how it changes its mind. 00:33:11.185 --> 00:33:14.660 align:middle line:90% 00:33:14.660 --> 00:33:18.140 align:middle line:84% It starts out to be just one of these romantic love poems. 00:33:18.140 --> 00:33:24.720 align:middle line:90% 00:33:24.720 --> 00:33:27.870 align:middle line:84% To ask the imagination, to save it. 00:33:27.870 --> 00:33:32.770 align:middle line:84% And then it lives it out the way it is. 00:33:32.770 --> 00:33:34.060 align:middle line:90% It's called "Painted Steps." 00:33:34.060 --> 00:33:37.620 align:middle line:90% 00:33:37.620 --> 00:33:42.240 align:middle line:84% I was coming down the wide painted steps. 00:33:42.240 --> 00:33:44.670 align:middle line:84% I wanted to go with you in your leaving the way 00:33:44.670 --> 00:33:47.370 align:middle line:84% a farmer would go behind his horse 00:33:47.370 --> 00:33:49.530 align:middle line:90% to keep the rows straight. 00:33:49.530 --> 00:33:51.690 align:middle line:84% Even when we reached the car door 00:33:51.690 --> 00:33:54.510 align:middle line:84% and I knew the field would not get there in time, 00:33:54.510 --> 00:33:56.640 align:middle line:84% I thought, surely, he'll find a way 00:33:56.640 --> 00:34:01.530 align:middle line:84% to walk from this so I can see him harmed and unsure, 00:34:01.530 --> 00:34:04.650 align:middle line:84% like a man who would turn back if he could, 00:34:04.650 --> 00:34:09.690 align:middle line:84% if the field were not coming late under its flock of birds. 00:34:09.690 --> 00:34:12.179 align:middle line:84% The last moments, when you leaned from the car, 00:34:12.179 --> 00:34:16.350 align:middle line:84% even then I thought, if only we could believe this as never. 00:34:16.350 --> 00:34:19.679 align:middle line:84% The field would have mercy, would come down around us 00:34:19.679 --> 00:34:22.350 align:middle line:90% like a fine, healing rain. 00:34:22.350 --> 00:34:25.620 align:middle line:84% I stood where the car had been and looked out 00:34:25.620 --> 00:34:29.100 align:middle line:84% as far as I could, believing so the light would 00:34:29.100 --> 00:34:32.880 align:middle line:84% deepen and drop off the field, empty, 00:34:32.880 --> 00:34:35.820 align:middle line:90% and settle one patch of sky. 00:34:35.820 --> 00:34:39.090 align:middle line:84% But no, I'm not one of those who changes an ending 00:34:39.090 --> 00:34:41.110 align:middle line:90% to keep the moment true. 00:34:41.110 --> 00:34:43.889 align:middle line:84% Think of me as one who lives things quickly, 00:34:43.889 --> 00:34:47.100 align:middle line:90% cruelly as a car could live it. 00:34:47.100 --> 00:34:49.980 align:middle line:84% Think of me as one who stands in the streets, 00:34:49.980 --> 00:34:54.150 align:middle line:84% speeding past with a stopped wheel in my hands, 00:34:54.150 --> 00:34:57.870 align:middle line:84% and the radio, its small hearth flickering along 00:34:57.870 --> 00:34:59.085 align:middle line:90% the trees ahead. 00:34:59.085 --> 00:35:03.816 align:middle line:90% 00:35:03.816 --> 00:35:08.020 align:middle line:84% I'll go back to Texas here for a minute. 00:35:08.020 --> 00:35:13.880 align:middle line:84% I went out for dinner with three women one night. 00:35:13.880 --> 00:35:16.460 align:middle line:90% And we had a male waiter. 00:35:16.460 --> 00:35:19.430 align:middle line:84% I want to say that I spent a long apprenticeship 00:35:19.430 --> 00:35:21.230 align:middle line:90% as a waitress. 00:35:21.230 --> 00:35:24.530 align:middle line:84% And so my attitude toward the waiter 00:35:24.530 --> 00:35:32.406 align:middle line:84% here comes from that, knowing how he felt. 00:35:32.406 --> 00:35:34.420 align:middle line:90% It's called "Crepes Flambeau." 00:35:34.420 --> 00:35:37.450 align:middle line:90% 00:35:37.450 --> 00:35:40.810 align:middle line:84% We are three women eating out in a place that 00:35:40.810 --> 00:35:44.740 align:middle line:84% could be California or New Jersey but is Texas. 00:35:44.740 --> 00:35:48.040 align:middle line:84% And our waiter says his name is Jerry. 00:35:48.040 --> 00:35:51.820 align:middle line:84% He is pink and young, dressed in soft denim 00:35:51.820 --> 00:35:57.040 align:middle line:84% with an embroidered vest and, my friend says, a nice butt. 00:35:57.040 --> 00:36:00.970 align:middle line:84% It's hard not to be intimate in America, 00:36:00.970 --> 00:36:04.180 align:middle line:84% where your waiter wants you to call him Jerry. 00:36:04.180 --> 00:36:06.435 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:36:06.435 --> 00:36:08.690 align:middle line:90% 00:36:08.690 --> 00:36:12.260 align:middle line:84% So why do you feel sorry for him standing over 00:36:12.260 --> 00:36:14.750 align:middle line:90% the flames of this dessert? 00:36:14.750 --> 00:36:18.710 align:middle line:84% The little fans of the crapes are folding into the juice. 00:36:18.710 --> 00:36:23.330 align:middle line:84% The brandy is a flare and a low, blue hush, and golden now, 00:36:23.330 --> 00:36:26.270 align:middle line:84% and red where he spills, the brown sugar 00:36:26.270 --> 00:36:29.570 align:middle line:84% saved to make our faces wear the sudden burst. 00:36:29.570 --> 00:36:32.570 align:middle line:84% We are all good-looking and older. 00:36:32.570 --> 00:36:35.960 align:middle line:84% And he has to please us or try to. 00:36:35.960 --> 00:36:37.910 align:middle line:90% What could go wrong? 00:36:37.910 --> 00:36:41.090 align:middle line:84% Too much brandy, too little sugar, 00:36:41.090 --> 00:36:46.340 align:middle line:84% fire falling into our laps, fire like laughter behind his back, 00:36:46.340 --> 00:36:49.700 align:middle line:84% even when he has done it just right. 00:36:49.700 --> 00:36:53.720 align:middle line:84% Jerry, we say, that was wonderful. 00:36:53.720 --> 00:36:58.670 align:middle line:84% For now, he is blushing at us like a russet young girl. 00:36:58.670 --> 00:37:02.150 align:middle line:84% Our lips are red with fire and juice. 00:37:02.150 --> 00:37:05.870 align:middle line:84% He knows we could go on, eating long into the night 00:37:05.870 --> 00:37:08.630 align:middle line:84% until the flames run down our throats. 00:37:08.630 --> 00:37:12.230 align:middle line:84% Thank you, he says, handing us our check, 00:37:12.230 --> 00:37:14.600 align:middle line:84% knowing among the ferns and napkins 00:37:14.600 --> 00:37:18.560 align:middle line:84% that he has pleased us briefly like all good things, 00:37:18.560 --> 00:37:23.780 align:middle line:84% dying away at the only moment before we are too happy, too 00:37:23.780 --> 00:37:26.690 align:middle line:90% glad in the pioneer decor-- 00:37:26.690 --> 00:37:32.250 align:middle line:84% rough boards, spotted horses in the frame. 00:37:32.250 --> 00:37:35.190 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:37:35.190 --> 00:37:40.590 align:middle line:90% 00:37:40.590 --> 00:37:45.920 align:middle line:84% The next one has a kind of ironic title 00:37:45.920 --> 00:37:49.910 align:middle line:84% because it's spoken by someone who's dead. 00:37:49.910 --> 00:37:55.585 align:middle line:84% And it's called "Tableau Vivant," or "Living Scene." 00:37:55.585 --> 00:37:59.570 align:middle line:90% 00:37:59.570 --> 00:38:02.390 align:middle line:84% They think it's easy to be dead, those 00:38:02.390 --> 00:38:05.240 align:middle line:84% who walk the pathway here in stylish shoes, 00:38:05.240 --> 00:38:07.760 align:middle line:84% portable radios strapped to their arms, 00:38:07.760 --> 00:38:12.260 align:middle line:84% selling the world's perishables, even love songs. 00:38:12.260 --> 00:38:14.630 align:middle line:84% They think you just lie down into dreams 00:38:14.630 --> 00:38:16.520 align:middle line:90% you will never tell anyone. 00:38:16.520 --> 00:38:20.450 align:middle line:84% They don't know we still have plans, a yen for romance, 00:38:20.450 --> 00:38:24.230 align:middle line:84% and miss things like hats and casseroles. 00:38:24.230 --> 00:38:28.190 align:middle line:84% As for dreams, we take up where the living leave off. 00:38:28.190 --> 00:38:29.990 align:middle line:84% We like, especially, those in which 00:38:29.990 --> 00:38:33.110 align:middle line:84% the dreamer was about to fall over a cliff 00:38:33.110 --> 00:38:36.410 align:middle line:84% or from a bridge that is falling, too. 00:38:36.410 --> 00:38:40.760 align:middle line:84% We're only too glad to look down on the river gorge enlarging 00:38:40.760 --> 00:38:44.990 align:middle line:84% under a body's sudden weight, to have the ground rushing up 00:38:44.990 --> 00:38:48.320 align:middle line:90% instead of this slow caving in. 00:38:48.320 --> 00:38:52.340 align:middle line:84% We thrive on living out the last precious memories of someone 00:38:52.340 --> 00:38:55.640 align:middle line:90% escaped back into morning light. 00:38:55.640 --> 00:38:58.310 align:middle line:84% Occasionally, there's a message saying they want one of us 00:38:58.310 --> 00:39:02.540 align:middle line:84% back, someone out there feeling guilty about a word 00:39:02.540 --> 00:39:07.880 align:middle line:84% or deed that seems worse because we took it as a living harm, 00:39:07.880 --> 00:39:11.510 align:middle line:90% then died with it quietly. 00:39:11.510 --> 00:39:13.700 align:middle line:84% But we know a lot about forgiveness. 00:39:13.700 --> 00:39:18.590 align:middle line:84% And we always make these trips with a certain missionary zeal. 00:39:18.590 --> 00:39:21.590 align:middle line:84% We get back into our old, sad clothes. 00:39:21.590 --> 00:39:25.760 align:middle line:84% We stand again at the parting, full of wrong tenderness 00:39:25.760 --> 00:39:28.190 align:middle line:90% and needing a shave or a hairdo. 00:39:28.190 --> 00:39:31.520 align:middle line:84% We tell them things are OK, not to waste 00:39:31.520 --> 00:39:33.050 align:middle line:90% their lives in remorse. 00:39:33.050 --> 00:39:35.340 align:middle line:90% We never held it against them. 00:39:35.340 --> 00:39:38.880 align:middle line:84% So much happens that no one means. 00:39:38.880 --> 00:39:43.430 align:middle line:84% But sometimes one of us gets stubborn, an idea of evening 00:39:43.430 --> 00:39:44.570 align:middle line:90% the score. 00:39:44.570 --> 00:39:50.900 align:middle line:84% We leave them calling after us-- sorry, sorry, sorry-- 00:39:50.900 --> 00:39:52.580 align:middle line:90% and we don't look back. 00:39:52.580 --> 00:39:59.290 align:middle line:90% 00:39:59.290 --> 00:40:01.360 align:middle line:84% The next poem was written during the first half 00:40:01.360 --> 00:40:03.760 align:middle line:84% of my Guggenheim, when I was living in a cabin 00:40:03.760 --> 00:40:08.530 align:middle line:84% up in Port Townsend, where the editor, Graywolf Press, 00:40:08.530 --> 00:40:11.020 align:middle line:90% the press the publishes me is. 00:40:11.020 --> 00:40:14.980 align:middle line:84% It's about an hour from where I was born. 00:40:14.980 --> 00:40:18.370 align:middle line:84% I had a lot of teasing about my living circumstances out there 00:40:18.370 --> 00:40:20.380 align:middle line:84% because the cabin wasn't winterized. 00:40:20.380 --> 00:40:22.030 align:middle line:84% And I had to spend a lot of my time 00:40:22.030 --> 00:40:26.740 align:middle line:84% cutting Alder, which burns all too fast. 00:40:26.740 --> 00:40:30.850 align:middle line:84% All I had was a fireplace and a cook stove. 00:40:30.850 --> 00:40:32.660 align:middle line:84% And so my friends down there said, 00:40:32.660 --> 00:40:35.120 align:middle line:84% well, you're just wasting this Guggenheim money. 00:40:35.120 --> 00:40:39.260 align:middle line:84% [LAUGHS] You're just chopping wood all the time. 00:40:39.260 --> 00:40:41.685 align:middle line:84% And so I teased them after I wrote this poem. 00:40:41.685 --> 00:40:43.810 align:middle line:84% Because I said, well, if I hadn't had a wood house, 00:40:43.810 --> 00:40:46.460 align:middle line:84% I never would have gotten this poem. 00:40:46.460 --> 00:40:48.280 align:middle line:84% It's called "Bird-Window-Flying." 00:40:48.280 --> 00:40:51.150 align:middle line:90% 00:40:51.150 --> 00:40:56.400 align:middle line:84% I got that title, I think, from reading David Wagner's poems 00:40:56.400 --> 00:40:58.065 align:middle line:90% taken from Indian myths. 00:40:58.065 --> 00:41:03.580 align:middle line:90% 00:41:03.580 --> 00:41:07.360 align:middle line:84% If we had been given names to love each other by, 00:41:07.360 --> 00:41:10.840 align:middle line:84% I would take this one from you, bird flying 00:41:10.840 --> 00:41:13.150 align:middle line:90% all day in my wood house. 00:41:13.150 --> 00:41:17.110 align:middle line:84% The door is open as when you came to it, into it 00:41:17.110 --> 00:41:20.200 align:middle line:90% as space between branches. 00:41:20.200 --> 00:41:23.530 align:middle line:84% Never trust doors, you tell the window, 00:41:23.530 --> 00:41:27.670 align:middle line:84% the small of your body flung against the white bay. 00:41:27.670 --> 00:41:31.600 align:middle line:84% At dusk, when I walked in with my armload of green Alder, 00:41:31.600 --> 00:41:33.880 align:middle line:84% I could see the memory of light shining 00:41:33.880 --> 00:41:35.680 align:middle line:90% water through your wings. 00:41:35.680 --> 00:41:37.750 align:middle line:90% You were gray with it. 00:41:37.750 --> 00:41:41.350 align:middle line:84% The window had aged you with promises. 00:41:41.350 --> 00:41:46.000 align:middle line:84% I thought the boats, the gulls should have stilled you by now. 00:41:46.000 --> 00:41:48.970 align:middle line:84% When I cupped my hands in their shadows, 00:41:48.970 --> 00:41:52.600 align:middle line:84% warm over the heart wings, I saw the skin of light 00:41:52.600 --> 00:41:56.170 align:middle line:84% between my fingers, payload and glowing. 00:41:56.170 --> 00:42:01.270 align:middle line:84% Three steps I took with you, for you, three light years 00:42:01.270 --> 00:42:05.440 align:middle line:84% traveling to your sky, beak and claw of you, 00:42:05.440 --> 00:42:09.370 align:middle line:84% the soft burr of flight at my finger bones. 00:42:09.370 --> 00:42:11.530 align:middle line:84% If I take a lover for every tree, 00:42:11.530 --> 00:42:14.290 align:middle line:84% I will not have again such an opening 00:42:14.290 --> 00:42:16.840 align:middle line:90% as when you flew from me. 00:42:16.840 --> 00:42:19.960 align:middle line:90% I have gone in to build my fire. 00:42:19.960 --> 00:42:24.220 align:middle line:84% All the walls, all the wings of my house are burning, 00:42:24.220 --> 00:42:28.405 align:middle line:84% the flames of me, the long hair unbraiding. 00:42:28.405 --> 00:42:33.470 align:middle line:90% 00:42:33.470 --> 00:42:37.060 align:middle line:84% I'm going to go now to poems from Under Stars. 00:42:37.060 --> 00:42:45.370 align:middle line:90% 00:42:45.370 --> 00:42:48.790 align:middle line:84% You know, sometimes you write a poem to finish an argument. 00:42:48.790 --> 00:42:54.580 align:middle line:84% And this is-- you always get the best of it that way. 00:42:54.580 --> 00:42:59.850 align:middle line:90% 00:42:59.850 --> 00:43:03.240 align:middle line:84% I had a lot of disagreements with Irish women. 00:43:03.240 --> 00:43:05.910 align:middle line:90% 00:43:05.910 --> 00:43:13.300 align:middle line:84% They thought that American women were emasculating their men. 00:43:13.300 --> 00:43:17.685 align:middle line:84% And that was the only thing that we were up to. 00:43:17.685 --> 00:43:19.770 align:middle line:90% And I wasn't able to-- 00:43:19.770 --> 00:43:21.630 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:43:21.630 --> 00:43:23.160 align:middle line:90% --convince her otherwise. 00:43:23.160 --> 00:43:25.860 align:middle line:90% 00:43:25.860 --> 00:43:29.760 align:middle line:84% So she had me meet her down at this place that was later 00:43:29.760 --> 00:43:33.960 align:middle line:90% blown up by the IRA, in Sligo. 00:43:33.960 --> 00:43:36.405 align:middle line:84% It's one of these businessmen's hotels. 00:43:36.405 --> 00:43:40.560 align:middle line:90% 00:43:40.560 --> 00:43:46.660 align:middle line:84% "On Your Own"-- how quickly the postures shift. 00:43:46.660 --> 00:43:49.420 align:middle line:84% Just moments ago, we seemed human. 00:43:49.420 --> 00:43:52.180 align:middle line:84% Or in the Toledo of my past, I made out 00:43:52.180 --> 00:43:54.550 align:middle line:84% I was emotionally illiterate so as not 00:43:54.550 --> 00:43:57.070 align:middle line:90% to feel a pain I deserved. 00:43:57.070 --> 00:43:59.380 align:middle line:84% Here, at the Great Southern, some of the boys 00:43:59.380 --> 00:44:03.190 align:middle line:84% have made it into gray suits and pocket calculators. 00:44:03.190 --> 00:44:06.010 align:middle line:84% I'm feeling, end of season, like a somebody 00:44:06.010 --> 00:44:08.590 align:middle line:84% who's hung around the church between a series 00:44:08.590 --> 00:44:10.480 align:middle line:90% of double weddings. 00:44:10.480 --> 00:44:13.630 align:middle line:84% Friend, what you said about the terror of American 00:44:13.630 --> 00:44:16.360 align:middle line:90% womanhood, I forget it already. 00:44:16.360 --> 00:44:18.220 align:middle line:90% But I know what you mean. 00:44:18.220 --> 00:44:21.580 align:middle line:84% I'm so scary, some days I'd run from myself. 00:44:21.580 --> 00:44:25.480 align:middle line:84% It's hard work, having your way even half the time 00:44:25.480 --> 00:44:29.320 align:middle line:84% and, having it, know what not to do with it. 00:44:29.320 --> 00:44:33.610 align:middle line:84% Who hasn't thrown away a life or two at the mercy of another's 00:44:33.610 --> 00:44:36.580 align:middle line:90% passion, spite, or industry? 00:44:36.580 --> 00:44:39.940 align:middle line:84% It's like this on your own, the charms 00:44:39.940 --> 00:44:43.480 align:middle line:84% unlucky, the employment solitary, 00:44:43.480 --> 00:44:47.605 align:middle line:84% the best love always the benefit of a strenuous doubt. 00:44:47.605 --> 00:44:51.345 align:middle line:90% 00:44:51.345 --> 00:44:52.800 align:middle line:90% Yay! 00:44:52.800 --> 00:44:55.710 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:44:55.710 --> 00:44:59.610 align:middle line:90% 00:44:59.610 --> 00:45:05.690 align:middle line:84% The next poem is a poem that did appear in Ironwood, 00:45:05.690 --> 00:45:07.460 align:middle line:90% "The Ballad of Ballymote." 00:45:07.460 --> 00:45:10.430 align:middle line:84% Ballymote is in the west of Ireland. 00:45:10.430 --> 00:45:13.340 align:middle line:84% It's near, not too far from the border 00:45:13.340 --> 00:45:17.960 align:middle line:84% between the Republic of Ireland and the North of Ireland. 00:45:17.960 --> 00:45:22.070 align:middle line:84% People wonder why I put this poem in the west of Ireland, 00:45:22.070 --> 00:45:24.050 align:middle line:84% in the Republic, rather than in the North. 00:45:24.050 --> 00:45:26.240 align:middle line:84% And I think it was because I felt 00:45:26.240 --> 00:45:29.060 align:middle line:84% more fear of when I was in the Republic 00:45:29.060 --> 00:45:30.200 align:middle line:90% than I felt in the North. 00:45:30.200 --> 00:45:33.290 align:middle line:84% People couldn't even afford to be afraid up there sometimes. 00:45:33.290 --> 00:45:37.093 align:middle line:84% Because they had to live with it all the time. 00:45:37.093 --> 00:45:38.885 align:middle line:84% But the people near the border were afraid. 00:45:38.885 --> 00:45:42.070 align:middle line:90% 00:45:42.070 --> 00:45:45.790 align:middle line:84% It's also a portrait of the situation of Irish women, 00:45:45.790 --> 00:45:46.390 align:middle line:90% quite a lot. 00:45:46.390 --> 00:45:50.340 align:middle line:90% 00:45:50.340 --> 00:45:53.010 align:middle line:90% "The Ballad of Ballymote"-- 00:45:53.010 --> 00:45:56.160 align:middle line:84% we stopped at her hut on the road to Ballymote, 00:45:56.160 --> 00:45:57.600 align:middle line:90% but she did not look up. 00:45:57.600 --> 00:46:00.030 align:middle line:90% And her head was on her knee. 00:46:00.030 --> 00:46:00.690 align:middle line:90% What is it? 00:46:00.690 --> 00:46:02.040 align:middle line:90% We asked. 00:46:02.040 --> 00:46:05.700 align:middle line:84% As from the dreams of the dead, her voice came up. 00:46:05.700 --> 00:46:09.220 align:middle line:84% My father, they shot him as he looked up from his plate, 00:46:09.220 --> 00:46:13.260 align:middle line:84% and again as he stood, and again as he fell against the stove. 00:46:13.260 --> 00:46:18.570 align:middle line:84% And like a thrush, his breath bruised the room and was gone. 00:46:18.570 --> 00:46:21.120 align:middle line:84% A traveler would have asked directions 00:46:21.120 --> 00:46:23.610 align:middle line:84% but saw she would not lift her face. 00:46:23.610 --> 00:46:24.660 align:middle line:90% What is it? 00:46:24.660 --> 00:46:26.340 align:middle line:90% He asked. 00:46:26.340 --> 00:46:29.700 align:middle line:84% My husband sits all day in a pub and all night. 00:46:29.700 --> 00:46:31.680 align:middle line:84% And I may as well be a widow for the way he 00:46:31.680 --> 00:46:34.870 align:middle line:90% beats me to prove he's alive. 00:46:34.870 --> 00:46:35.460 align:middle line:90% What is it? 00:46:35.460 --> 00:46:39.000 align:middle line:84% Asked the traveler's wife, just come up to look. 00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:42.810 align:middle line:84% My sons lost both eyes in a fight to keep himself a man. 00:46:42.810 --> 00:46:46.000 align:middle line:84% And there he sits, behind the door, where there is no door. 00:46:46.000 --> 00:46:48.990 align:middle line:84% And he sees but the stumps of his hands. 00:46:48.990 --> 00:46:51.420 align:middle line:84% And have you no daughters for comfort? 00:46:51.420 --> 00:46:54.690 align:middle line:84% Two there are, and gone to nuns, and a third to the North 00:46:54.690 --> 00:46:56.400 align:middle line:90% with a fisherman. 00:46:56.400 --> 00:46:57.930 align:middle line:90% What are you cooking? 00:46:57.930 --> 00:47:01.110 align:middle line:84% Cabbage and bones, she said, cabbage and bones. 00:47:01.110 --> 00:47:04.858 align:middle line:90% 00:47:04.858 --> 00:47:07.762 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:47:07.762 --> 00:47:15.990 align:middle line:90% 00:47:15.990 --> 00:47:19.530 align:middle line:90% I was last in Ireland in May. 00:47:19.530 --> 00:47:24.150 align:middle line:84% And I have a growing interest now in traditional Irish music, 00:47:24.150 --> 00:47:30.660 align:middle line:84% which has been going on since before I visited here in '77. 00:47:30.660 --> 00:47:33.870 align:middle line:84% But this last trip, we went down into County Fermanagh, 00:47:33.870 --> 00:47:40.960 align:middle line:84% which is on the northern side, with places like Enniskillen, 00:47:40.960 --> 00:47:42.730 align:middle line:90% names like that. 00:47:42.730 --> 00:47:46.100 align:middle line:84% And I was traveling with these musicians, singers. 00:47:46.100 --> 00:47:46.600 align:middle line:90% Let's see. 00:47:46.600 --> 00:47:49.300 align:middle line:84% There were two singers in the group, and a flute player, 00:47:49.300 --> 00:47:52.510 align:middle line:84% and a woman fiddle player, which was kind of unusual. 00:47:52.510 --> 00:47:54.070 align:middle line:84% Because women aren't very much even 00:47:54.070 --> 00:47:57.790 align:middle line:84% on the traditional Irish music scene. 00:47:57.790 --> 00:48:02.360 align:middle line:84% And these songs have become very important to me. 00:48:02.360 --> 00:48:05.980 align:middle line:84% I've started to collect a certain variety of them, 00:48:05.980 --> 00:48:08.920 align:middle line:84% a variety that I called my ghost songs. 00:48:08.920 --> 00:48:11.170 align:middle line:84% So I would ask all of these singers 00:48:11.170 --> 00:48:12.430 align:middle line:90% if they knew any ghost songs. 00:48:12.430 --> 00:48:14.180 align:middle line:84% And I had my tape recorder along. 00:48:14.180 --> 00:48:18.850 align:middle line:84% And I would record these songs from them. 00:48:18.850 --> 00:48:22.810 align:middle line:84% And I have a feeling they've affected some of the voice 00:48:22.810 --> 00:48:24.330 align:middle line:90% quality in some of the poems. 00:48:24.330 --> 00:48:28.180 align:middle line:84% And I want to introduce the next poem with the song. 00:48:28.180 --> 00:48:32.710 align:middle line:84% And these songs are not sung with any accompaniment. 00:48:32.710 --> 00:48:37.870 align:middle line:84% They're-- usually, you've had a few pints. 00:48:37.870 --> 00:48:42.040 align:middle line:84% And someone has got the voice going and saying, 00:48:42.040 --> 00:48:44.020 align:middle line:84% well, let's have a song, let's have a song. 00:48:44.020 --> 00:48:46.300 align:middle line:84% And usually, you've probably had several fiddle tunes. 00:48:46.300 --> 00:48:48.910 align:middle line:84% I can remember one evening being in a room 00:48:48.910 --> 00:48:53.080 align:middle line:84% with 15 fiddle players, if you can imagine. 00:48:53.080 --> 00:48:54.580 align:middle line:84% So this is one of the ghost songs. 00:48:54.580 --> 00:49:00.970 align:middle line:84% This is sung by a woman named Diane Keene. 00:49:00.970 --> 00:49:05.290 align:middle line:84% And it's called "There Was a Maid." 00:49:05.290 --> 00:49:10.690 align:middle line:84% (SINGING) There was a maid in her father's garden. 00:49:10.690 --> 00:49:15.340 align:middle line:90% And a gentleman came passing by. 00:49:15.340 --> 00:49:17.980 align:middle line:90% He stopped a while. 00:49:17.980 --> 00:49:21.250 align:middle line:90% And he stood and watched her. 00:49:21.250 --> 00:49:26.440 align:middle line:84% Then he said, fair maid, will you marry me? 00:49:26.440 --> 00:49:36.320 align:middle line:84% I am no lady but a poor girl and a poor girl of low degree. 00:49:36.320 --> 00:49:41.510 align:middle line:84% And so, young man, you must find another 00:49:41.510 --> 00:49:47.070 align:middle line:84% for I'm not fitting your bride to be. 00:49:47.070 --> 00:49:49.730 align:middle line:90% Oh, I have houses. 00:49:49.730 --> 00:49:52.190 align:middle line:90% And I have money. 00:49:52.190 --> 00:49:56.810 align:middle line:90% And I have land to set you free. 00:49:56.810 --> 00:50:01.220 align:middle line:90% I'll make you a fine young lady. 00:50:01.220 --> 00:50:07.040 align:middle line:84% And you'll have servants to wait on thee. 00:50:07.040 --> 00:50:14.040 align:middle line:84% Seven years since I had a sweetheart and seven more 00:50:14.040 --> 00:50:17.280 align:middle line:90% since I did him see. 00:50:17.280 --> 00:50:23.010 align:middle line:84% Seven more I will wait upon him, for he's 00:50:23.010 --> 00:50:27.720 align:middle line:90% the young man that I love best. 00:50:27.720 --> 00:50:34.260 align:middle line:84% It's seven years since you had a sweetheart and seven more 00:50:34.260 --> 00:50:37.530 align:middle line:90% since you did him see. 00:50:37.530 --> 00:50:42.420 align:middle line:84% Seven more you will wait upon him, 00:50:42.420 --> 00:50:48.360 align:middle line:84% for he's the young man that you love best. 00:50:48.360 --> 00:50:53.670 align:middle line:84% And if he's sick, I wish him better. 00:50:53.670 --> 00:50:58.350 align:middle line:84% And if he's dead, I wish him rest. 00:50:58.350 --> 00:51:02.880 align:middle line:84% If he's alive, he'll come home to me. 00:51:02.880 --> 00:51:09.150 align:middle line:84% For he's the young man that I love best. 00:51:09.150 --> 00:51:13.830 align:middle line:84% He put his hand into his pockets, 00:51:13.830 --> 00:51:18.270 align:middle line:84% his lily-white fingers being small and thin. 00:51:18.270 --> 00:51:23.220 align:middle line:84% And out between them he took a gold ring. 00:51:23.220 --> 00:51:28.560 align:middle line:84% And when she saw it, down she did fall. 00:51:28.560 --> 00:51:35.700 align:middle line:84% He picked her up all in his arms and gave her kisses 00:51:35.700 --> 00:51:43.400 align:middle line:84% most tenderly saying, I'm your true love, a single sailor, 00:51:43.400 --> 00:51:49.760 align:middle line:84% come home from see, love, to wed with thee. 00:51:49.760 --> 00:51:57.710 align:middle line:84% If you're my true love, a single sailor, your face and features 00:51:57.710 --> 00:52:00.290 align:middle line:90% seem strange to me. 00:52:00.290 --> 00:52:05.750 align:middle line:84% But seven years makes great alterations 00:52:05.750 --> 00:52:11.694 align:middle line:84% on the raging sea between you and me. 00:52:11.694 --> 00:52:14.676 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:52:14.676 --> 00:52:25.130 align:middle line:90% 00:52:25.130 --> 00:52:28.600 align:middle line:90% Well, sometimes it's the-- 00:52:28.600 --> 00:52:31.410 align:middle line:84% the dead one doesn't come back so willingly, 00:52:31.410 --> 00:52:33.300 align:middle line:90% and you have to call him back. 00:52:33.300 --> 00:52:43.810 align:middle line:84% And so this poem is one in which the speaker raises the dead. 00:52:43.810 --> 00:52:47.530 align:middle line:84% It's called the ritual of memories. 00:52:47.530 --> 00:52:50.530 align:middle line:84% When your widow had left the graveside 00:52:50.530 --> 00:52:53.560 align:middle line:84% and you were most alone, I went to you 00:52:53.560 --> 00:52:57.550 align:middle line:84% in that future you can't remember yet. 00:52:57.550 --> 00:53:02.020 align:middle line:84% I brought a basin of clear water where no tear had fallen. 00:53:02.020 --> 00:53:06.580 align:middle line:84% Water gathered like grapes, a drop at a time, 00:53:06.580 --> 00:53:08.950 align:middle line:90% from the leaves of the Willow. 00:53:08.950 --> 00:53:10.780 align:middle line:90% I brought oils. 00:53:10.780 --> 00:53:13.750 align:middle line:90% I brought a clean, white gown. 00:53:13.750 --> 00:53:15.550 align:middle line:90% Come out, I said. 00:53:15.550 --> 00:53:20.240 align:middle line:84% And you came up like a man pulling himself out of a river, 00:53:20.240 --> 00:53:22.210 align:middle line:84% a river with so many names there was 00:53:22.210 --> 00:53:25.330 align:middle line:90% no word left for it but earth. 00:53:25.330 --> 00:53:28.210 align:middle line:90% Now, I said, I'm ready. 00:53:28.210 --> 00:53:32.260 align:middle line:84% These eyes that have not left your face since the day we met, 00:53:32.260 --> 00:53:34.330 align:middle line:90% wash these eyes. 00:53:34.330 --> 00:53:37.900 align:middle line:84% Remember, it was a country road above the sea. 00:53:37.900 --> 00:53:40.930 align:middle line:84% And I was passing from the house of a friend. 00:53:40.930 --> 00:53:44.650 align:middle line:84% Look into these eyes, where we met. 00:53:44.650 --> 00:53:47.890 align:middle line:84% I saw your mind go back through the years, 00:53:47.890 --> 00:53:49.810 align:middle line:90% searching for that day. 00:53:49.810 --> 00:53:54.490 align:middle line:84% And finding it, you washed my eyes with the pure water 00:53:54.490 --> 00:53:56.800 align:middle line:84% so that I vanished from that road. 00:53:56.800 --> 00:53:58.600 align:middle line:90% And you passed a lifetime. 00:53:58.600 --> 00:54:01.030 align:middle line:90% And I was not there. 00:54:01.030 --> 00:54:05.290 align:middle line:84% So you washed every part of me, where any look or touch 00:54:05.290 --> 00:54:07.090 align:middle line:90% had passed between us. 00:54:07.090 --> 00:54:10.400 align:middle line:84% Remember, I said, when you came to the feat. 00:54:10.400 --> 00:54:11.950 align:middle line:84% It was the night before you would 00:54:11.950 --> 00:54:14.680 align:middle line:84% ask the girl of your village to marry. 00:54:14.680 --> 00:54:16.450 align:middle line:90% I was the strange one. 00:54:16.450 --> 00:54:19.030 align:middle line:84% I was the one with the gypsy look. 00:54:19.030 --> 00:54:22.810 align:middle line:84% Remember how you stroked these feet, when 00:54:22.810 --> 00:54:26.590 align:middle line:84% the lips and the hands had been treated likewise 00:54:26.590 --> 00:54:30.520 align:middle line:84% and the pit of the throat, where one thoughtless kiss had 00:54:30.520 --> 00:54:31.480 align:middle line:90% fallen. 00:54:31.480 --> 00:54:33.940 align:middle line:90% You rubbed in the sweet oil. 00:54:33.940 --> 00:54:36.730 align:middle line:84% And I glistened like a new-made thing, 00:54:36.730 --> 00:54:42.160 align:middle line:84% not merely human but of the world gone past being human. 00:54:42.160 --> 00:54:45.700 align:middle line:84% The hair, I said, you've forgotten the hair. 00:54:45.700 --> 00:54:47.740 align:middle line:90% Don't you know it remembers? 00:54:47.740 --> 00:54:50.500 align:middle line:84% Don't you know it keeps everything? 00:54:50.500 --> 00:54:51.430 align:middle line:90% Listen. 00:54:51.430 --> 00:54:55.000 align:middle line:84% There is your voice and, in it, the liar's charm 00:54:55.000 --> 00:54:56.440 align:middle line:90% that caught me. 00:54:56.440 --> 00:54:57.520 align:middle line:90% You listened. 00:54:57.520 --> 00:54:59.170 align:middle line:90% You heard your voice. 00:54:59.170 --> 00:55:02.470 align:middle line:84% And a look of such sadness passed over your dead face 00:55:02.470 --> 00:55:04.780 align:middle line:90% that I wanted to touch you. 00:55:04.780 --> 00:55:08.080 align:middle line:84% Who could have known I would be so held? 00:55:08.080 --> 00:55:10.390 align:middle line:90% Not you, in your boyish cunning. 00:55:10.390 --> 00:55:13.540 align:middle line:84% Not me, in my traveler's clothes. 00:55:13.540 --> 00:55:14.800 align:middle line:90% It's finished. 00:55:14.800 --> 00:55:17.080 align:middle line:90% Put the gown on my shoulders. 00:55:17.080 --> 00:55:20.170 align:middle line:84% It's no life in the shadow of another's joys. 00:55:20.170 --> 00:55:22.240 align:middle line:90% Let me go freely now. 00:55:22.240 --> 00:55:24.770 align:middle line:90% One life I have lived for you. 00:55:24.770 --> 00:55:26.440 align:middle line:90% This one is mine. 00:55:26.440 --> 00:55:31.370 align:middle line:90% 00:55:31.370 --> 00:55:36.740 align:middle line:84% I think I'll finish with a poem for my father and kind of round 00:55:36.740 --> 00:55:38.540 align:middle line:84% out things since I started with him. 00:55:38.540 --> 00:55:44.750 align:middle line:90% 00:55:44.750 --> 00:55:52.370 align:middle line:84% I had just come back from Ireland in 1977. 00:55:52.370 --> 00:55:55.320 align:middle line:84% And my father had had a heart attack while I was away. 00:55:55.320 --> 00:55:57.380 align:middle line:84% And I wasn't able to be there for very long. 00:55:57.380 --> 00:56:01.250 align:middle line:84% And he was still continuing, as he always had, 00:56:01.250 --> 00:56:05.450 align:middle line:84% going down and playing cards at the Chinook tavern 00:56:05.450 --> 00:56:07.925 align:middle line:90% until 2:00 in the morning. 00:56:07.925 --> 00:56:10.190 align:middle line:84% And then my job would be to go down and get him, 00:56:10.190 --> 00:56:11.300 align:middle line:90% bring him home. 00:56:11.300 --> 00:56:18.020 align:middle line:84% And we'd sit up and sober up, have some coffee. 00:56:18.020 --> 00:56:19.910 align:middle line:84% I'd make him some eggs sometimes. 00:56:19.910 --> 00:56:24.930 align:middle line:84% And we would have serious talks at that hour of the morning. 00:56:24.930 --> 00:56:27.830 align:middle line:84% And because I was going away the next day, 00:56:27.830 --> 00:56:30.530 align:middle line:84% he seemed to want to try and tell me 00:56:30.530 --> 00:56:33.860 align:middle line:90% a lot of things about his life. 00:56:33.860 --> 00:56:37.400 align:middle line:84% But also, he was very merciful and also leaving out things. 00:56:37.400 --> 00:56:41.450 align:middle line:90% 00:56:41.450 --> 00:56:45.620 align:middle line:84% He had come up there, in 1940, to the Northwest 00:56:45.620 --> 00:56:48.320 align:middle line:84% and had been logging with my mother. 00:56:48.320 --> 00:56:49.580 align:middle line:90% They were partners. 00:56:49.580 --> 00:56:51.860 align:middle line:90% She was a choker setter for him. 00:56:51.860 --> 00:56:57.775 align:middle line:84% And then he went to Long Shoring after that. 00:56:57.775 --> 00:56:59.720 align:middle line:90% "3 A.M. Kitchen-- 00:56:59.720 --> 00:57:07.490 align:middle line:84% My Father Talking"-- for years, it was land working me-- 00:57:07.490 --> 00:57:10.280 align:middle line:90% oil fields, cotton fields. 00:57:10.280 --> 00:57:12.260 align:middle line:90% Then I got some land. 00:57:12.260 --> 00:57:13.430 align:middle line:90% I worked it. 00:57:13.430 --> 00:57:16.640 align:middle line:84% Them days, you could just about make a living. 00:57:16.640 --> 00:57:18.640 align:middle line:90% I was logging. 00:57:18.640 --> 00:57:20.170 align:middle line:90% Then I sent to Missouri. 00:57:20.170 --> 00:57:21.610 align:middle line:90% Momma come out. 00:57:21.610 --> 00:57:23.110 align:middle line:90% We got married. 00:57:23.110 --> 00:57:26.560 align:middle line:90% We got some kids, five kids. 00:57:26.560 --> 00:57:28.510 align:middle line:90% That kept us going. 00:57:28.510 --> 00:57:31.180 align:middle line:84% We bought some land near the water. 00:57:31.180 --> 00:57:32.740 align:middle line:90% It was cheap then. 00:57:32.740 --> 00:57:34.630 align:middle line:90% The water was right there. 00:57:34.630 --> 00:57:37.000 align:middle line:90% You just looked out the window. 00:57:37.000 --> 00:57:39.580 align:middle line:90% It never left the window. 00:57:39.580 --> 00:57:42.430 align:middle line:90% I bought a boat, 14-footer. 00:57:42.430 --> 00:57:44.290 align:middle line:90% There was fish out there then. 00:57:44.290 --> 00:57:45.370 align:middle line:90% You remember. 00:57:45.370 --> 00:57:48.490 align:middle line:84% We used to catch six, eight fish, 00:57:48.490 --> 00:57:51.010 align:middle line:84% clean them right out in the yard. 00:57:51.010 --> 00:57:54.010 align:middle line:90% I could have fished to China. 00:57:54.010 --> 00:57:59.590 align:middle line:84% I quit the woods one day, just walked out, took off my corks, 00:57:59.590 --> 00:58:01.840 align:middle line:90% said, that's it. 00:58:01.840 --> 00:58:03.370 align:middle line:90% I went to the docks. 00:58:03.370 --> 00:58:05.050 align:middle line:90% I was driving winch. 00:58:05.050 --> 00:58:09.220 align:middle line:84% You had to watch to see nothing fell out of the sling. 00:58:09.220 --> 00:58:12.820 align:middle line:84% If you killed somebody, you'd never forget it. 00:58:12.820 --> 00:58:15.760 align:middle line:84% All those years, I was just working. 00:58:15.760 --> 00:58:19.600 align:middle line:84% I was on edge every day, just working. 00:58:19.600 --> 00:58:25.120 align:middle line:84% You kids, I could tell you a lot, but I won't. 00:58:25.120 --> 00:58:26.170 align:middle line:90% It's winter. 00:58:26.170 --> 00:58:29.260 align:middle line:84% I play a lot of cards down at the tavern. 00:58:29.260 --> 00:58:31.990 align:middle line:84% Your mother, I have to think of excuses 00:58:31.990 --> 00:58:33.580 align:middle line:90% to get out of the house. 00:58:33.580 --> 00:58:35.980 align:middle line:84% You're wasting your time, she says. 00:58:35.980 --> 00:58:38.260 align:middle line:90% You're wasting your money. 00:58:38.260 --> 00:58:40.420 align:middle line:84% You don't have no idea, Threasie. 00:58:40.420 --> 00:58:43.030 align:middle line:90% I run out of things to work for. 00:58:43.030 --> 00:58:45.670 align:middle line:84% Hell, why shouldn't I play cards? 00:58:45.670 --> 00:58:51.150 align:middle line:84% Threasie, some days, now, I just don't know. 00:58:51.150 --> 00:58:52.050 align:middle line:90% Thank you very much. 00:58:52.050 --> 00:58:55.700 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:58:55.700 --> 00:59:34.000 align:middle line:90%