WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.130 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.130 --> 00:00:06.360 align:middle line:90% Maybe back to a suite now. 00:00:06.360 --> 00:00:11.660 align:middle line:90% This is a-- astrological suite. 00:00:11.660 --> 00:00:17.780 align:middle line:84% And I didn't think I placed a great deal of purchase 00:00:17.780 --> 00:00:24.800 align:middle line:84% in astrological suites or in astrology itself. 00:00:24.800 --> 00:00:27.320 align:middle line:84% And I don't suppose, in a way, I still do, 00:00:27.320 --> 00:00:30.080 align:middle line:84% in that day-to-day kind of thing. 00:00:30.080 --> 00:00:32.900 align:middle line:84% My irritation of it really came out in this first book. 00:00:32.900 --> 00:00:37.340 align:middle line:84% I have one little chapter, or one little verse in here 00:00:37.340 --> 00:00:39.590 align:middle line:84% that I'll read before I get to that poem. 00:00:39.590 --> 00:00:41.360 align:middle line:90% "Month of the frozen goat. 00:00:41.360 --> 00:00:44.240 align:middle line:84% La Roberta says cultivate new friends. 00:00:44.240 --> 00:00:46.790 align:middle line:84% Profit will be yours with patience. 00:00:46.790 --> 00:00:50.450 align:middle line:84% Not that stars are crossed, or light to be restored. 00:00:50.450 --> 00:00:54.240 align:middle line:90% We die from want of velocity." 00:00:54.240 --> 00:01:01.610 align:middle line:84% So that sensation of looking up and to see what's 00:01:01.610 --> 00:01:02.910 align:middle line:90% going to happen to you today. 00:01:02.910 --> 00:01:05.750 align:middle line:84% I also think when somebody says you're 00:01:05.750 --> 00:01:08.840 align:middle line:84% going to go on a long, long, long trip, what 00:01:08.840 --> 00:01:12.614 align:middle line:84% somebody in prison thinks of reading that in Rita Del Mar. 00:01:12.614 --> 00:01:16.910 align:middle line:90% 00:01:16.910 --> 00:01:19.970 align:middle line:84% Maybe a different kind of trip, or, hopefully, 00:01:19.970 --> 00:01:22.730 align:middle line:90% something for the poor people. 00:01:22.730 --> 00:01:25.530 align:middle line:90% But this is called "The Sign." 00:01:25.530 --> 00:01:29.300 align:middle line:90% 00:01:29.300 --> 00:01:32.720 align:middle line:84% There are no magic numbers or magic lives. 00:01:32.720 --> 00:01:35.840 align:middle line:84% He dreams of Sagittarius in a thicket. 00:01:35.840 --> 00:01:37.910 align:middle line:90% Dogs yipe at his hoofs. 00:01:37.910 --> 00:01:40.460 align:middle line:84% The eye of the archer seaward, his 00:01:40.460 --> 00:01:43.160 align:middle line:90% gaze toward impossible things. 00:01:43.160 --> 00:01:47.270 align:middle line:84% Bird to be fish, archer and horse, a whale or dolphin. 00:01:47.270 --> 00:01:50.270 align:middle line:84% Then rears up, canters away from the shore, 00:01:50.270 --> 00:01:54.110 align:middle line:84% across the wide field of fern and honeysuckle brambles, 00:01:54.110 --> 00:01:58.520 align:middle line:84% to a woods where he nibbles at small, fresh leeks coming up 00:01:58.520 --> 00:02:00.440 align:middle line:90% among dead leaves. 00:02:00.440 --> 00:02:02.750 align:middle line:84% Strange creature to be thought of, 00:02:02.750 --> 00:02:05.120 align:middle line:90% welded in the skull as unicorn. 00:02:05.120 --> 00:02:08.600 align:middle line:84% Hoofs, bow, quiver of arrows, and beard. 00:02:08.600 --> 00:02:11.660 align:middle line:84% That girl sitting at cliff edge or beside a brook. 00:02:11.660 --> 00:02:13.160 align:middle line:90% How does he take her? 00:02:13.160 --> 00:02:14.780 align:middle line:90% He lifts her up to kiss her. 00:02:14.780 --> 00:02:18.050 align:middle line:84% And at night, standing by a stream, heavy mist 00:02:18.050 --> 00:02:22.370 align:middle line:84% up to his flanks, mist curling and floating through his legs, 00:02:22.370 --> 00:02:24.320 align:middle line:90% a chill comes over him. 00:02:24.320 --> 00:02:29.120 align:middle line:84% She, in restless sleep in a small stone cottage, 00:02:29.120 --> 00:02:34.190 align:middle line:84% between the scorpion and goat, three signs, winter and Cancer 00:02:34.190 --> 00:02:36.110 align:middle line:90% and this love of snow. 00:02:36.110 --> 00:02:40.550 align:middle line:84% In contempt for all signs, the nine spokes of the sun, 00:02:40.550 --> 00:02:43.640 align:middle line:84% the imagined belt of dark, her girdle in which 00:02:43.640 --> 00:02:45.470 align:middle line:90% night mantles herself. 00:02:45.470 --> 00:02:47.990 align:middle line:84% The stars guide no one, save those 00:02:47.990 --> 00:02:50.090 align:middle line:90% at sea or in the wilderness. 00:02:50.090 --> 00:02:52.850 align:middle line:84% Avoid what stinks or causes pain. 00:02:52.850 --> 00:02:56.000 align:middle line:84% Hate death and cruelty to any living thing. 00:02:56.000 --> 00:02:59.360 align:middle line:84% You do not need the stars for that. 00:02:59.360 --> 00:03:02.180 align:middle line:84% But often, at night, something asks the brain 00:03:02.180 --> 00:03:06.800 align:middle line:84% to ride, run riderless, plumed night swirling, brain riding 00:03:06.800 --> 00:03:10.520 align:middle line:84% itself through blackness, crazed with motion, 00:03:10.520 --> 00:03:12.050 align:middle line:90% footless against the Earth. 00:03:12.050 --> 00:03:14.960 align:middle line:84% Perhaps hooves imagined in lunacy, 00:03:14.960 --> 00:03:18.740 align:middle line:84% through swamps feared even in daytime, at a gallop, crashing 00:03:18.740 --> 00:03:22.910 align:middle line:84% through poplar thickets, tamarack, pools of green slime, 00:03:22.910 --> 00:03:25.520 align:middle line:84% withers splattered with mud, breathing deep 00:03:25.520 --> 00:03:28.430 align:middle line:84% in an open marsh in the center of the great swamp. 00:03:28.430 --> 00:03:31.760 align:middle line:84% Then running again toward an isle of cedar where deer feed. 00:03:31.760 --> 00:03:36.410 align:middle line:84% Pausing, stringing the bull, chasing the deer for miles, 00:03:36.410 --> 00:03:41.030 align:middle line:84% crossing a blacktop road where the hoofs clatter. 00:03:41.030 --> 00:03:43.490 align:middle line:84% On a May night, walking home from a tavern 00:03:43.490 --> 00:03:46.100 align:middle line:84% through a village with only three streetlights, 00:03:46.100 --> 00:03:48.410 align:middle line:84% a slip of moon and still air moist 00:03:48.410 --> 00:03:51.740 align:middle line:84% with the scent of first grass, to look into the blackness 00:03:51.740 --> 00:03:55.700 align:middle line:84% by the roadside in all directions, forest and field 00:03:55.700 --> 00:03:59.240 align:middle line:84% covered with the 18 miles of black to Traverse City, 00:03:59.240 --> 00:04:04.160 align:middle line:84% 13 miles of black to Buckley, 19 miles of black to Karlin, 00:04:04.160 --> 00:04:07.070 align:middle line:84% 12 miles of black to Walton Junction, 00:04:07.070 --> 00:04:09.440 align:middle line:90% and infinite black above. 00:04:09.440 --> 00:04:13.310 align:middle line:84% Earth herself a heavy, whirly ball of pitch. 00:04:13.310 --> 00:04:17.089 align:middle line:84% If the brain expands to cover these distances, 00:04:17.089 --> 00:04:19.579 align:middle line:84% stumbling to the porch where the cat has 00:04:19.579 --> 00:04:22.700 align:middle line:84% left an injured snake that hisses with the brain, 00:04:22.700 --> 00:04:25.370 align:middle line:84% the brain rearing up to shed the black. 00:04:25.370 --> 00:04:30.080 align:middle line:84% And the snake coiled, bleeding at its center. 00:04:30.080 --> 00:04:33.500 align:middle line:90% Not centaur or archer, but man. 00:04:33.500 --> 00:04:38.120 align:middle line:84% Man standing exhausted at night, beneath the night sky so deep 00:04:38.120 --> 00:04:39.560 align:middle line:90% and measureless. 00:04:39.560 --> 00:04:43.310 align:middle line:84% Head thrown back, he sees his constellation. 00:04:43.310 --> 00:04:46.580 align:middle line:84% His brain fleshes it and draws the lines 00:04:46.580 --> 00:04:50.810 align:middle line:84% which begin to ripple then glimmer, heave and twist, 00:04:50.810 --> 00:04:55.910 align:middle line:84% assume color, rear up, the head high, the chest and torso 00:04:55.910 --> 00:04:58.790 align:middle line:84% gleaming, beard glistening, flanks strapped 00:04:58.790 --> 00:05:04.010 align:middle line:84% with muscle, hooves stomping in place, stomping night's floor. 00:05:04.010 --> 00:05:07.490 align:middle line:84% Rearing again, fading, then regaining terror. 00:05:07.490 --> 00:05:12.680 align:middle line:84% The bow and hand, a strung bow, an arrow fitted, drawn back, 00:05:12.680 --> 00:05:14.600 align:middle line:90% the arrow molten-tipped. 00:05:14.600 --> 00:05:18.500 align:middle line:90% Slay, he only still slays. 00:05:18.500 --> 00:05:23.420 align:middle line:84% And when the arrow reaches earth, I'll die. 00:05:23.420 --> 00:05:26.240 align:middle line:84% But in morning light, already shrill and hot by 10:00, 00:05:26.240 --> 00:05:28.850 align:middle line:84% digging a well pit, the sandy earth 00:05:28.850 --> 00:05:32.150 align:middle line:84% crumbles and traps the legs, binding them to Earth. 00:05:32.150 --> 00:05:35.420 align:middle line:84% Then digging again, driving a shallow well 00:05:35.420 --> 00:05:38.750 align:middle line:84% with a sledge, the well tip shaped as an arrowhead, 00:05:38.750 --> 00:05:43.040 align:middle line:84% sledge hitting steel with metallic ring and scream. 00:05:43.040 --> 00:05:47.330 align:middle line:84% The pump head and arm bound to pipe, sitting in damp sand 00:05:47.330 --> 00:05:50.150 align:middle line:84% with the legs around the pipe, pumping the first water 00:05:50.150 --> 00:05:52.100 align:middle line:90% onto my chest and head. 00:05:52.100 --> 00:05:55.730 align:middle line:84% Head swollen with pain of last night's sign 00:05:55.730 --> 00:05:58.400 align:middle line:90% and leavings of whiskey. 00:05:58.400 --> 00:06:00.400 align:middle line:84% Or on another morning, the frost is 00:06:00.400 --> 00:06:04.230 align:middle line:84% a sheet of white-stubbled silk soon to melt into greenness. 00:06:04.230 --> 00:06:08.040 align:middle line:84% Partridge thumping ground with wings to call her mates, 00:06:08.040 --> 00:06:12.060 align:middle line:84% near a river thick and turbulent and brown. 00:06:12.060 --> 00:06:15.840 align:middle line:84% A great buck deer, startled from a thicket, 00:06:15.840 --> 00:06:18.720 align:middle line:90% a stag of a thousand stories. 00:06:18.720 --> 00:06:22.560 align:middle line:84% How easily his spread antlers trace a back 00:06:22.560 --> 00:06:25.260 align:middle line:90% and bow not unlike your own. 00:06:25.260 --> 00:06:31.860 align:middle line:84% Then the arc of him bounding away into his own green, clear 00:06:31.860 --> 00:06:34.410 align:middle line:90% music. 00:06:34.410 --> 00:06:36.150 align:middle line:84% I don't really know what an astrologer 00:06:36.150 --> 00:06:39.350 align:middle line:84% would think of that, if there are any of you in the audience.