WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.720 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.720 --> 00:00:02.790 align:middle line:90% And I have just one other poem. 00:00:02.790 --> 00:00:03.750 align:middle line:90% It's a long poem. 00:00:03.750 --> 00:00:06.640 align:middle line:90% It's the last poem to the book. 00:00:06.640 --> 00:00:09.480 align:middle line:84% It's called "The Glass Constellation." 00:00:09.480 --> 00:00:14.910 align:middle line:84% And I need to give you a few background notes about it. 00:00:14.910 --> 00:00:17.310 align:middle line:84% In East Indian philosophy, there's 00:00:17.310 --> 00:00:20.250 align:middle line:90% this image called Indra's net. 00:00:20.250 --> 00:00:24.120 align:middle line:84% And the idea is that, oh, East Indians being 00:00:24.120 --> 00:00:26.970 align:middle line:84% very philosophical and cosmological, 00:00:26.970 --> 00:00:31.110 align:middle line:84% have this idea that everything that occurs in the universe 00:00:31.110 --> 00:00:36.030 align:middle line:84% is like a piece of hanging glass in an enormous chandelier. 00:00:36.030 --> 00:00:40.780 align:middle line:84% So as I read the poem, you can't track or prioritize 00:00:40.780 --> 00:00:42.690 align:middle line:90% one event over another. 00:00:42.690 --> 00:00:46.260 align:middle line:84% But maybe the way to sort of listen 00:00:46.260 --> 00:00:49.770 align:middle line:84% to it is to hear these events as they unfold and imagine 00:00:49.770 --> 00:00:52.270 align:middle line:84% each one is like a piece of hanging glass. 00:00:52.270 --> 00:00:54.660 align:middle line:84% An idea in Indra's net is that when 00:00:54.660 --> 00:00:58.320 align:middle line:84% light shines into this vast chandelier, 00:00:58.320 --> 00:01:04.629 align:middle line:84% each hanging piece reflects and absorbs every other. 00:01:04.629 --> 00:01:08.760 align:middle line:84% And the last structural thing I want to say is I like to use, 00:01:08.760 --> 00:01:10.230 align:middle line:90% or refer to, myths. 00:01:10.230 --> 00:01:13.080 align:middle line:84% And one of the layers to the poem 00:01:13.080 --> 00:01:17.130 align:middle line:84% is the Egyptian Weighing of the Heart ceremony. 00:01:17.130 --> 00:01:19.560 align:middle line:84% When someone died, the heart was supposed 00:01:19.560 --> 00:01:22.860 align:middle line:84% to be weighed against a feather to see if you 00:01:22.860 --> 00:01:24.480 align:middle line:90% had lived a virtuous life. 00:01:24.480 --> 00:01:28.860 align:middle line:84% And if you did, you earned your way into the afterlife. 00:01:28.860 --> 00:01:32.467 align:middle line:84% And if you didn't, your heart was devoured. 00:01:32.467 --> 00:01:33.750 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:33.750 --> 00:01:36.930 align:middle line:84% So here it is, "The Glass Constellation." 00:01:36.930 --> 00:01:40.390 align:middle line:90% 00:01:40.390 --> 00:01:44.800 align:middle line:84% "Apple branches whiten in moonlight. 00:01:44.800 --> 00:01:48.790 align:middle line:84% No god with an ibis head and human body 00:01:48.790 --> 00:01:52.960 align:middle line:90% writes on a papyrus scroll here. 00:01:52.960 --> 00:01:56.830 align:middle line:84% In daylight, snow has accumulated 00:01:56.830 --> 00:02:00.880 align:middle line:90% on flagstone and fence posts. 00:02:00.880 --> 00:02:06.760 align:middle line:84% For days, masons cut bricks on the patio. 00:02:06.760 --> 00:02:12.190 align:middle line:84% The sound of a circular saw echoed in your ears, 00:02:12.190 --> 00:02:19.270 align:middle line:84% but now, scattered husks of silence lie on the ground. 00:02:19.270 --> 00:02:26.320 align:middle line:84% In a bowl-shaped fountain, water rises and brims. 00:02:26.320 --> 00:02:31.210 align:middle line:84% If all time brims at this threshold, 00:02:31.210 --> 00:02:38.740 align:middle line:84% a man tosses a beer can out of a car, then wrist flicks a match. 00:02:38.740 --> 00:02:43.450 align:middle line:84% A brush fire ignites, fans east, across a field 00:02:43.450 --> 00:02:46.510 align:middle line:90% toward a house and barn. 00:02:46.510 --> 00:02:52.000 align:middle line:84% As the stench of smoke permeates your clothes and hair, 00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:55.090 align:middle line:90% you lean on a shovel. 00:02:55.090 --> 00:03:00.700 align:middle line:84% Brush crackles then bursts into flame. 00:03:00.700 --> 00:03:05.890 align:middle line:84% Shoveling snow off a patio, you spot ice crystals, 00:03:05.890 --> 00:03:10.180 align:middle line:84% run your eyes along the glinting-- 00:03:10.180 --> 00:03:14.980 align:middle line:84% a varied thrush swallows a juniper berry. 00:03:14.980 --> 00:03:18.970 align:middle line:84% From the air, we track migrating caribou, 00:03:18.970 --> 00:03:24.910 align:middle line:84% and their shifting bodies make visible the magnetic lines 00:03:24.910 --> 00:03:27.130 align:middle line:90% of the moment. 00:03:27.130 --> 00:03:33.760 align:middle line:84% A magpie hops onto an apple tree stump, flies to a fence post, 00:03:33.760 --> 00:03:36.430 align:middle line:90% up to a branch. 00:03:36.430 --> 00:03:41.440 align:middle line:84% You want that absorption, that vitality, when you turn 00:03:41.440 --> 00:03:46.180 align:middle line:90% a key at the door, step inside. 00:03:46.180 --> 00:03:49.600 align:middle line:84% You consider what you've botched. 00:03:49.600 --> 00:03:52.480 align:middle line:84% Once you shortened a one by eight 00:03:52.480 --> 00:03:56.450 align:middle line:84% so that you could level sand on a portal. 00:03:56.450 --> 00:03:59.530 align:middle line:84% But the foreman stopped and screamed, 00:03:59.530 --> 00:04:03.550 align:middle line:84% 'You just sawed off my straight edge!' 00:04:03.550 --> 00:04:06.400 align:middle line:84% Heat waves ripple up from a highway 00:04:06.400 --> 00:04:11.620 align:middle line:84% outside a grapefruit farm near Salton Sea-- 00:04:11.620 --> 00:04:16.180 align:middle line:84% the road dissolves into shimmering sand. 00:04:16.180 --> 00:04:20.170 align:middle line:84% You resume shoveling snow off the walkway 00:04:20.170 --> 00:04:24.770 align:middle line:90% and tingle at the hot and cold. 00:04:24.770 --> 00:04:31.210 align:middle line:84% Once, in the dark, a large doe stood behind you. 00:04:31.210 --> 00:04:35.380 align:middle line:90% A woman begs outside the bakery. 00:04:35.380 --> 00:04:41.140 align:middle line:84% When he unlatched the gate, fawns appeared in the orchard. 00:04:41.140 --> 00:04:47.410 align:middle line:84% A temblor torqued the dining room and silenced the laughter. 00:04:47.410 --> 00:04:53.710 align:middle line:84% A spotted towhee lands on a nest and feeds her fledglings-- 00:04:53.710 --> 00:04:57.760 align:middle line:84% gazing into the vortex of the white page. 00:04:57.760 --> 00:05:02.410 align:middle line:84% No jackal-headed god needs to weigh your heart 00:05:02.410 --> 00:05:05.440 align:middle line:90% against an eagle feather. 00:05:05.440 --> 00:05:09.730 align:middle line:84% At sunrise, you divert water from the ditch 00:05:09.730 --> 00:05:15.430 align:middle line:84% to sprinklers that swish, spray the grass. 00:05:15.430 --> 00:05:19.060 align:middle line:90% A soldier on point pauses. 00:05:19.060 --> 00:05:22.630 align:middle line:84% Who knows the path of a man on crutches 00:05:22.630 --> 00:05:25.600 align:middle line:90% begging at a stoplight? 00:05:25.600 --> 00:05:28.390 align:middle line:84% From the underground uranium mine, 00:05:28.390 --> 00:05:33.670 align:middle line:84% a shock wave shattered windows in the village above. 00:05:33.670 --> 00:05:40.600 align:middle line:84% In the dictionary, you open to "cochlea," then "pungent." 00:05:40.600 --> 00:05:44.500 align:middle line:84% A thinning membrane, the Earth's atmosphere. 00:05:44.500 --> 00:05:48.310 align:middle line:84% You write "respire," then listen. 00:05:48.310 --> 00:05:52.870 align:middle line:84% Nibbling dandelion stalks, a cottontail. 00:05:52.870 --> 00:06:00.250 align:middle line:84% As peonies unfold in a vase, you smell the back of her neck. 00:06:00.250 --> 00:06:05.590 align:middle line:84% Researchers trained honeybees tagged with microtransmitters 00:06:05.590 --> 00:06:11.620 align:middle line:84% to track TNT and locate landmines in fields. 00:06:11.620 --> 00:06:18.370 align:middle line:84% Sun Tzu wrote, 'To win 100 victories in 100 battles is not 00:06:18.370 --> 00:06:21.610 align:middle line:90% the acme of skill.' 00:06:21.610 --> 00:06:25.540 align:middle line:84% In the boiler room, a plumber replaced a zone valve 00:06:25.540 --> 00:06:30.340 align:middle line:84% but inadvertently let air into the water line. 00:06:30.340 --> 00:06:36.670 align:middle line:84% At midnight, in a house with no heat, you restart the boiler, 00:06:36.670 --> 00:06:39.890 align:middle line:84% but on the concrete floor, rat shit 00:06:39.890 --> 00:06:43.190 align:middle line:84% is scattered like rice, though you 00:06:43.190 --> 00:06:45.830 align:middle line:90% set a trap with peanut butter. 00:06:45.830 --> 00:06:51.110 align:middle line:84% You recall a coyote munching an apple core, 00:06:51.110 --> 00:06:57.890 align:middle line:84% gazing through the kitchen window, unblinking in sunlight. 00:06:57.890 --> 00:07:02.210 align:middle line:84% A magpie lands on a buck and eats ticks. 00:07:02.210 --> 00:07:07.400 align:middle line:84% Sun Tzu wrote 'Musical notes are only five in number, 00:07:07.400 --> 00:07:10.490 align:middle line:84% but their melodies are so numerous, 00:07:10.490 --> 00:07:14.300 align:middle line:90% one cannot hear them all.' 00:07:14.300 --> 00:07:19.040 align:middle line:84% Nasturtium and lobelia planted in pots. 00:07:19.040 --> 00:07:23.150 align:middle line:90% In the silence, a pipa twangs. 00:07:23.150 --> 00:07:27.680 align:middle line:84% A cougar stalks neighborhood dogs in the dark. 00:07:27.680 --> 00:07:31.730 align:middle line:84% You walked up to the acequia but finding no water, 00:07:31.730 --> 00:07:36.380 align:middle line:84% fingered the silt. A sniper fires 00:07:36.380 --> 00:07:38.390 align:middle line:90% from a second-story window. 00:07:38.390 --> 00:07:42.620 align:middle line:84% Fingers start rolling and halting on strings. 00:07:42.620 --> 00:07:44.480 align:middle line:90% Where did I put my car keys? 00:07:44.480 --> 00:07:45.800 align:middle line:90% I'm pissed-- late. 00:07:45.800 --> 00:07:48.230 align:middle line:84% What's this fucking-- note under the door? 00:07:48.230 --> 00:07:50.540 align:middle line:90% Behind on my rent? 00:07:50.540 --> 00:07:53.180 align:middle line:84% That sound of a truck coming down the street. 00:07:53.180 --> 00:07:54.170 align:middle line:90% I need a shot-- 00:07:54.170 --> 00:07:57.200 align:middle line:84% not yet-- ugh-- that sound of glass breaking. 00:07:57.200 --> 00:07:58.670 align:middle line:90% Now, piss me off. 00:07:58.670 --> 00:08:00.860 align:middle line:84% I have to wait until that truck's done. 00:08:00.860 --> 00:08:03.560 align:middle line:90% Maybe I'll move to Denver-- 00:08:03.560 --> 00:08:06.080 align:middle line:90% to back out. 00:08:06.080 --> 00:08:10.760 align:middle line:84% When the caribou arrive, flowering herbs are starting 00:08:10.760 --> 00:08:17.630 align:middle line:84% to wilt. When you type, 'I have taken too little care,' you 00:08:17.630 --> 00:08:23.030 align:middle line:84% step out on a glacial lake at 10 below. 00:08:23.030 --> 00:08:27.740 align:middle line:84% Ice crystals singe your eyelashes. 00:08:27.740 --> 00:08:33.440 align:middle line:84% You mark the forking branches of a tree in the darkening air. 00:08:33.440 --> 00:08:38.690 align:middle line:84% Minute by minute, your sight shrinks and shallows 00:08:38.690 --> 00:08:44.150 align:middle line:84% until the glass panes of the door shift from window 00:08:44.150 --> 00:08:46.220 align:middle line:90% to mirror. 00:08:46.220 --> 00:08:53.030 align:middle line:84% At that moment, grief and joy tip the ends of a scale. 00:08:53.030 --> 00:08:55.370 align:middle line:84% Earlier, you did not know you would 00:08:55.370 --> 00:09:01.040 align:middle line:84% live to see a blue gentian flower out of air. 00:09:01.040 --> 00:09:08.000 align:middle line:84% So often, you knew the page before it burst into flame. 00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:11.340 align:middle line:84% Staring at the snowy field of the page, 00:09:11.340 --> 00:09:15.080 align:middle line:84% you tense when an Arctic fox slips 00:09:15.080 --> 00:09:18.770 align:middle line:90% past the black trunks of trees. 00:09:18.770 --> 00:09:23.240 align:middle line:90% You blink, and nothing is there. 00:09:23.240 --> 00:09:26.420 align:middle line:84% The blinking cursor marks a pendulum 00:09:26.420 --> 00:09:32.750 align:middle line:84% swinging from a vaulted ceiling over a marble floor. 00:09:32.750 --> 00:09:35.990 align:middle line:84% Though no god fingers your nerves, 00:09:35.990 --> 00:09:42.770 align:middle line:84% you write "tingle" and tingle as sleet turns to rain. 00:09:42.770 --> 00:09:45.440 align:middle line:84% In the white space, a poppy buds. 00:09:45.440 --> 00:09:48.290 align:middle line:84% He runs his fingers through her hair. 00:09:48.290 --> 00:09:53.570 align:middle line:84% The spray of mock orange streams by. 00:09:53.570 --> 00:09:57.650 align:middle line:84% At a fountain, a spotted towhee sips. 00:09:57.650 --> 00:10:02.690 align:middle line:84% Clenching his hand, he tugs the roots of her hair. 00:10:02.690 --> 00:10:10.490 align:middle line:84% A fisherman unspools a line back and forth, relaxes his grip. 00:10:10.490 --> 00:10:16.430 align:middle line:84% A fly drops onto a stream, and a cutthroat snags it-- 00:10:16.430 --> 00:10:20.720 align:middle line:90% unfolds a sky blue poppy. 00:10:20.720 --> 00:10:24.590 align:middle line:84% She is rubbing oil on his chest and nipples, 00:10:24.590 --> 00:10:28.310 align:middle line:90% staccato lightning to the west. 00:10:28.310 --> 00:10:32.150 align:middle line:84% Swimming in the Pacific, they look at two lines 00:10:32.150 --> 00:10:35.660 align:middle line:90% of dolphins undulating below-- 00:10:35.660 --> 00:10:42.020 align:middle line:84% encircling, one suddenly flips into the air then plunges 00:10:42.020 --> 00:10:44.400 align:middle line:90% into the depths. 00:10:44.400 --> 00:10:48.140 align:middle line:90% Sound of a car shifting gears. 00:10:48.140 --> 00:10:54.590 align:middle line:84% Out of PVC pipes, water gushes into the orchard. 00:10:54.590 --> 00:10:59.960 align:middle line:84% Women are rinsing indigo-dyed yarn in a river. 00:10:59.960 --> 00:11:05.810 align:middle line:84% He sees the zigzag blue lines in tiles above the fireplace 00:11:05.810 --> 00:11:09.200 align:middle line:84% as he has never seen them before. 00:11:09.200 --> 00:11:15.860 align:middle line:84% She sees June light slanting through glass into the hallway. 00:11:15.860 --> 00:11:20.390 align:middle line:84% Before his ashes are scattered at sea, 00:11:20.390 --> 00:11:25.910 align:middle line:84% you stare at a dead apricot tree in moonlight. 00:11:25.910 --> 00:11:29.240 align:middle line:84% What was it like to hear a commotion 00:11:29.240 --> 00:11:33.710 align:middle line:84% in the street and glimpse the last emperor leave 00:11:33.710 --> 00:11:36.260 align:middle line:90% the Forbidden City? 00:11:36.260 --> 00:11:41.090 align:middle line:84% Years later, in West Virginia, coal miners 00:11:41.090 --> 00:11:45.470 align:middle line:84% armed with sticks of dynamite rolled on cots 00:11:45.470 --> 00:11:51.020 align:middle line:84% into mine openings and then back out. 00:11:51.020 --> 00:11:56.000 align:middle line:84% Detonations in the past are laced in garlic now. 00:11:56.000 --> 00:12:00.740 align:middle line:84% Sniffing the air and leaning his head back and forth, 00:12:00.740 --> 00:12:04.790 align:middle line:84% a coyote trots by the glass door. 00:12:04.790 --> 00:12:11.450 align:middle line:84% Last night, coyotes howled before tearing apart a rabbit. 00:12:11.450 --> 00:12:16.830 align:middle line:84% At 4:00 AM, a baker slides dough into an oven. 00:12:16.830 --> 00:12:22.010 align:middle line:84% The aroma rises from the basement kiln. 00:12:22.010 --> 00:12:28.430 align:middle line:84% And as you inhale, it drizzles on deck. 00:12:28.430 --> 00:12:32.420 align:middle line:84% Three miles from the coastline, you scattered ashes. 00:12:32.420 --> 00:12:35.420 align:middle line:84% And swirling on waves, they formed 00:12:35.420 --> 00:12:41.210 align:middle line:84% a gray, black-speckled cloud before sinking. 00:12:41.210 --> 00:12:45.020 align:middle line:84% At the beach, you screwed an umbrella pole 00:12:45.020 --> 00:12:50.750 align:middle line:84% into the sand, heard cry and cry but saw nothing. 00:12:50.750 --> 00:12:54.350 align:middle line:84% Then a piping plover skirting toward the water 00:12:54.350 --> 00:12:59.690 align:middle line:84% revealed behind rocks four speckled eggs. 00:12:59.690 --> 00:13:04.910 align:middle line:84% After replanting the pole, sitting under an umbrella, 00:13:04.910 --> 00:13:10.280 align:middle line:84% you felt how a skin separated you from death, 00:13:10.280 --> 00:13:16.880 align:middle line:84% how death contoured the pause between exhale and inhale, 00:13:16.880 --> 00:13:20.990 align:middle line:84% how it flowered inside the bougainvillea blooming 00:13:20.990 --> 00:13:27.590 align:middle line:84% by a glass door and sparked the white page into light. 00:13:27.590 --> 00:13:34.850 align:middle line:84% And as glass molecules slow as the temperature cools yet never 00:13:34.850 --> 00:13:39.350 align:middle line:84% lock into crystal patterns, you feel 00:13:39.350 --> 00:13:46.580 align:middle line:84% how once never locks, how it vibrates, quickens inside you. 00:13:46.580 --> 00:13:51.980 align:middle line:84% Then you level with a taxi driver swerving between trucks, 00:13:51.980 --> 00:13:58.220 align:middle line:84% level with a potter who smashes a bowl back into a ball, level 00:13:58.220 --> 00:14:01.580 align:middle line:84% with a magpie that congregates and squawks 00:14:01.580 --> 00:14:08.180 align:middle line:84% with other magpies over a corpse before flying off. 00:14:08.180 --> 00:14:14.000 align:middle line:84% And when you hike up the ridge, dew rising into the morning, 00:14:14.000 --> 00:14:20.230 align:middle line:84% you ride the flex of your muscles as you lift the gate." 00:14:20.230 --> 00:14:22.000 align:middle line:90%