WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.670 align:middle line:90%
Poem in a little different mood.

00:00:02.670 --> 00:00:04.950 align:middle line:84%
It's a sailing poem,
I mean the incident

00:00:04.950 --> 00:00:06.920 align:middle line:84%
is from sailing on
San Francisco Bay,

00:00:06.920 --> 00:00:08.820 align:middle line:84%
in case any of the
local references

00:00:08.820 --> 00:00:09.990 align:middle line:90%
escape you at the moment.

00:00:09.990 --> 00:00:12.748 align:middle line:90%


00:00:12.748 --> 00:00:13.915 align:middle line:90%
It's called "The Cormorant."

00:00:13.915 --> 00:00:24.177 align:middle line:90%
[AUDIENCE CHATTERING]

00:00:24.177 --> 00:00:24.760 align:middle line:90%
The cormorant.

00:00:24.760 --> 00:00:28.030 align:middle line:90%


00:00:28.030 --> 00:00:31.720 align:middle line:84%
Past Fort Point we
came in running,

00:00:31.720 --> 00:00:34.570 align:middle line:84%
the fishermen clustered on
the black rocks and the air

00:00:34.570 --> 00:00:37.510 align:middle line:90%
full of improbabilities.

00:00:37.510 --> 00:00:42.820 align:middle line:84%
Running with the wind, a
beam wind fair all the way.

00:00:42.820 --> 00:00:46.900 align:middle line:84%
The air speaking the sails,
the sky full of paper wings,

00:00:46.900 --> 00:00:50.626 align:middle line:90%
your eyes afire with wonder.

00:00:50.626 --> 00:00:53.340 align:middle line:84%
But halfway in you
cried out and I turned

00:00:53.340 --> 00:00:54.465 align:middle line:90%
and saw the sick cormorant.

00:00:54.465 --> 00:00:57.070 align:middle line:90%


00:00:57.070 --> 00:01:02.380 align:middle line:84%
Drifting on slack tide
it came past, flotsam,

00:01:02.380 --> 00:01:06.880 align:middle line:84%
what life left paid out
in barely keeping afloat.

00:01:06.880 --> 00:01:10.690 align:middle line:84%
Oiled down, that veteran
of nautical heaven

00:01:10.690 --> 00:01:12.820 align:middle line:90%
fell here to die.

00:01:12.820 --> 00:01:16.240 align:middle line:84%
Deep diver, that
far seer, surveyor

00:01:16.240 --> 00:01:21.970 align:middle line:84%
of mistrals knowing on spring's
fairest day what it is to dive.

00:01:21.970 --> 00:01:26.140 align:middle line:84%
Come from the
miriamorphic kiss of winds

00:01:26.140 --> 00:01:30.760 align:middle line:84%
to drown in the oil slick spread
by some tanker from Martinez,

00:01:30.760 --> 00:01:32.460 align:middle line:90%
Crockett, or Richmond

00:01:32.460 --> 00:01:34.610 align:middle line:90%
[ENGINE ROARING NEARBY]

00:01:34.610 --> 00:01:36.410 align:middle line:90%
Helpless it drifted by.

00:01:36.410 --> 00:01:38.920 align:middle line:90%


00:01:38.920 --> 00:01:43.150 align:middle line:90%
The fog rolls under the bridge.

00:01:43.150 --> 00:01:48.435 align:middle line:84%
Some little while we float
then sink in seas of chemistry.

00:01:48.435 --> 00:01:58.000 align:middle line:90%