WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.625 align:middle line:84% I'll read a poem with a central image that can be concentrated. 00:00:02.625 --> 00:00:04.920 align:middle line:84% And this is a poem called "The Parachutist." 00:00:04.920 --> 00:00:08.707 align:middle line:84% I think it came largely from my reading the newspaper, all two 00:00:08.707 --> 00:00:10.290 align:middle line:84% or three years ago about that incident 00:00:10.290 --> 00:00:12.210 align:middle line:84% where a number of sport parachutists 00:00:12.210 --> 00:00:15.840 align:middle line:84% would drop from an airplane in cloudy weather 00:00:15.840 --> 00:00:18.750 align:middle line:84% that was too high to notice it was over the Great Lakes. 00:00:18.750 --> 00:00:21.270 align:middle line:84% And the parachutists all drowned. 00:00:21.270 --> 00:00:24.600 align:middle line:84% In this poem, the central image of a parachutist 00:00:24.600 --> 00:00:27.870 align:middle line:84% who was parachuting in winter and plunges into a lake 00:00:27.870 --> 00:00:30.480 align:middle line:90% and is drowned is-- 00:00:30.480 --> 00:00:32.250 align:middle line:84% the central image is mainly an excuse 00:00:32.250 --> 00:00:35.010 align:middle line:84% to hang some statements upon that image. 00:00:35.010 --> 00:00:38.460 align:middle line:84% A sense of his reacquainting himself with his own self 00:00:38.460 --> 00:00:42.518 align:middle line:84% or with his own life more fully, feeling the rightness of it 00:00:42.518 --> 00:00:45.060 align:middle line:84% as he falls toward his death-- toward a death he doesn't know 00:00:45.060 --> 00:00:47.910 align:middle line:90% is coming. 00:00:47.910 --> 00:00:50.310 align:middle line:90% "The Parachutist." 00:00:50.310 --> 00:00:52.680 align:middle line:90% Then the air was perfect. 00:00:52.680 --> 00:00:56.070 align:middle line:84% And his descent to the white earth slowed. 00:00:56.070 --> 00:00:58.680 align:middle line:84% Falling became an ability to rest, 00:00:58.680 --> 00:01:02.610 align:middle line:84% as the released breath believes in life. 00:01:02.610 --> 00:01:05.850 align:middle line:84% Further down it snowed, a confusion of slow 00:01:05.850 --> 00:01:08.770 align:middle line:84% novas which his shoes touched upon, 00:01:08.770 --> 00:01:13.200 align:middle line:84% which seemed, as he fell by, to be rising. 00:01:13.200 --> 00:01:16.860 align:middle line:84% From every small college and rural town, 00:01:16.860 --> 00:01:22.990 align:middle line:84% the clearest, iced blossoms of thought, but gentle. 00:01:22.990 --> 00:01:24.900 align:middle line:84% Then the housetops of friends, who 00:01:24.900 --> 00:01:27.030 align:middle line:84% he thought had been speaking of his arrival, 00:01:27.030 --> 00:01:30.210 align:middle line:90% withdrew, each from another. 00:01:30.210 --> 00:01:32.910 align:middle line:84% He saw that his friends lived in a solitude 00:01:32.910 --> 00:01:35.220 align:middle line:90% they had not ever said aloud. 00:01:35.220 --> 00:01:39.030 align:middle line:84% And strangely he thought this good. 00:01:39.030 --> 00:01:42.300 align:middle line:84% The world, in fact, which in these moments he came toward, 00:01:42.300 --> 00:01:44.280 align:middle line:90% seemed casual. 00:01:44.280 --> 00:01:46.380 align:middle line:84% Had he been thinking this all along? 00:01:46.380 --> 00:01:50.640 align:middle line:84% A life where he belonged, having lived with himself always, 00:01:50.640 --> 00:01:53.580 align:middle line:90% as a secret friend. 00:01:53.580 --> 00:01:55.500 align:middle line:90% A few may have seen him then. 00:01:55.500 --> 00:01:58.950 align:middle line:84% In evidence, the stopped dots of children and dogs, 00:01:58.950 --> 00:02:00.900 align:middle line:90% the sudden weave of a car. 00:02:00.900 --> 00:02:05.220 align:middle line:84% Acquaintances circling up into the adventure they imagined. 00:02:05.220 --> 00:02:09.330 align:middle line:84% They saw him drop down to the lake which openly awaited him. 00:02:09.330 --> 00:02:13.440 align:middle line:84% And here the thin green ice allowed him in. 00:02:13.440 --> 00:02:16.050 align:middle line:90% Some ran, and will light. 00:02:16.050 --> 00:02:19.860 align:middle line:84% These would forever imagine tragedy, endless descent, 00:02:19.860 --> 00:02:23.790 align:middle line:84% his face floating among the reeds, unrecognized, 00:02:23.790 --> 00:02:26.610 align:middle line:84% as those who imagine the silence of a guest 00:02:26.610 --> 00:02:29.780 align:middle line:90% to be mysterious, or wrong.