WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.245 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.245 --> 00:00:02.830 align:middle line:84% I can't tell you what a pleasure it 00:00:02.830 --> 00:00:05.530 align:middle line:84% is to have a child who falls asleep in my arms at night, 00:00:05.530 --> 00:00:07.915 align:middle line:84% saying, moon poem, mommy, moon poem. 00:00:07.915 --> 00:00:11.290 align:middle line:90% 00:00:11.290 --> 00:00:14.600 align:middle line:84% And I'll finish up with another of my favorites. 00:00:14.600 --> 00:00:18.940 align:middle line:84% This is Gerard Manley Hopkins' "The Windhover." 00:00:18.940 --> 00:00:23.690 align:middle line:84% Many of the poems that I read as a youngster 00:00:23.690 --> 00:00:26.480 align:middle line:84% were by English poets, British poets, 00:00:26.480 --> 00:00:28.620 align:middle line:90% and they reflected that world. 00:00:28.620 --> 00:00:30.420 align:middle line:90% And Hopkins, too, is British-- 00:00:30.420 --> 00:00:31.530 align:middle line:90% was British. 00:00:31.530 --> 00:00:36.330 align:middle line:84% But this is one whose rhythms and whose imagery 00:00:36.330 --> 00:00:41.970 align:middle line:84% really struck me as capturing this kind of stark and strong 00:00:41.970 --> 00:00:43.680 align:middle line:90% beauty of the Sonoran desert. 00:00:43.680 --> 00:00:48.090 align:middle line:84% So I responded to it so instinctively 00:00:48.090 --> 00:00:52.500 align:middle line:84% and deeply, and only later did I realize 00:00:52.500 --> 00:00:57.450 align:middle line:84% that it does have a lot of the kinds of complex stresses 00:00:57.450 --> 00:01:01.860 align:middle line:84% and rhythms and interior rhymes of the great old Norse poetry 00:01:01.860 --> 00:01:06.920 align:middle line:84% that I would one day go to college to study. 00:01:06.920 --> 00:01:09.080 align:middle line:84% My father actually says I'm the only person 00:01:09.080 --> 00:01:11.210 align:middle line:84% he knows who has five degrees in fairy tales. 00:01:11.210 --> 00:01:15.020 align:middle line:90% 00:01:15.020 --> 00:01:20.690 align:middle line:84% And this is not one of those ancient poems, but it has the-- 00:01:20.690 --> 00:01:25.100 align:middle line:84% it has the strength of some of them, of the best of them. 00:01:25.100 --> 00:01:27.620 align:middle line:84% "I caught this morning morning's minion, 00:01:27.620 --> 00:01:31.610 align:middle line:84% kingdom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, 00:01:31.610 --> 00:01:35.270 align:middle line:84% in his riding of the rolling level underneath him steady 00:01:35.270 --> 00:01:38.630 align:middle line:84% air, and striding high there, how 00:01:38.630 --> 00:01:43.550 align:middle line:84% he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing in his ecstasy! 00:01:43.550 --> 00:01:47.960 align:middle line:84% Then off, off forth on a swing, as a skate's heel 00:01:47.960 --> 00:01:51.560 align:middle line:84% sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding 00:01:51.560 --> 00:01:53.600 align:middle line:90% rebuffed the big wind. 00:01:53.600 --> 00:01:56.570 align:middle line:84% My heart in hiding stirred for a bird-- 00:01:56.570 --> 00:02:00.080 align:middle line:84% the achieve of; the mastery of the thing! 00:02:00.080 --> 00:02:05.030 align:middle line:84% Brute beauty and valor and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here 00:02:05.030 --> 00:02:05.960 align:middle line:90% buckle! 00:02:05.960 --> 00:02:09.680 align:middle line:84% And the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion times 00:02:09.680 --> 00:02:14.660 align:middle line:84% told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier! 00:02:14.660 --> 00:02:19.640 align:middle line:84% No wonder of it: shéer plod makes plow down sillion shine, 00:02:19.640 --> 00:02:25.730 align:middle line:84% and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear, fall, gall themselves, 00:02:25.730 --> 00:02:28.010 align:middle line:90% and gash gold vermillion." 00:02:28.010 --> 00:02:39.490 align:middle line:90% 00:02:39.490 --> 00:02:41.010 align:middle line:90% Thank you.