WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.030 align:middle line:90% 00:00:03.030 --> 00:00:08.780 align:middle line:84% My little girl, I suppose like any other young child, 00:00:08.780 --> 00:00:12.820 align:middle line:84% has been obsessed off and on with the idea of death. 00:00:12.820 --> 00:00:14.990 align:middle line:90% The wonder of death. 00:00:14.990 --> 00:00:17.750 align:middle line:84% And in some ways more important to her 00:00:17.750 --> 00:00:21.350 align:middle line:84% than sex, which she understands all right, 00:00:21.350 --> 00:00:26.800 align:middle line:84% and I wonder what the virtues would make of death education. 00:00:26.800 --> 00:00:31.640 align:middle line:84% In some ways, a lot more important since it's something 00:00:31.640 --> 00:00:34.170 align:middle line:84% we've never faced really in this country. 00:00:34.170 --> 00:00:37.640 align:middle line:84% And I think it's the source of a good deal of our agony. 00:00:37.640 --> 00:00:38.780 align:middle line:90% A denial of death. 00:00:38.780 --> 00:00:40.370 align:middle line:90% A refusal to accept death. 00:00:40.370 --> 00:00:43.400 align:middle line:90% 00:00:43.400 --> 00:00:45.620 align:middle line:84% When she sees dead squirrels and dead animals, 00:00:45.620 --> 00:00:47.630 align:middle line:84% dead things, and she went in when 00:00:47.630 --> 00:00:53.870 align:middle line:84% her grandfather died and touched his cold brow and wondered. 00:00:53.870 --> 00:00:57.150 align:middle line:84% And in the car driving somewhere a few months ago, 00:00:57.150 --> 00:01:00.560 align:middle line:84% she said, papa, what am I going to do if I have 00:01:00.560 --> 00:01:02.141 align:middle line:90% to go poo poo after I'm dead? 00:01:02.141 --> 00:01:04.099 align:middle line:84% And I said, well, I don't think you'll have to, 00:01:04.099 --> 00:01:06.493 align:middle line:84% and she said, but yeah, but what if I do? 00:01:06.493 --> 00:01:08.660 align:middle line:84% I said, well, after you die, you stop going poo poo, 00:01:08.660 --> 00:01:10.610 align:middle line:84% so you don't have to worry about it. 00:01:10.610 --> 00:01:12.500 align:middle line:84% But she couldn't get out of her head, and she said, well, yeah, 00:01:12.500 --> 00:01:14.500 align:middle line:84% but what if I have to go poo poo after I'm dead? 00:01:14.500 --> 00:01:15.690 align:middle line:90% What am I going to do? 00:01:15.690 --> 00:01:18.570 align:middle line:84% So I said, well, you have to look for a toilet. 00:01:18.570 --> 00:01:24.110 align:middle line:84% And she said, I think you better have a toilet in my coffin. 00:01:24.110 --> 00:01:26.850 align:middle line:84% Will you see to that, and she said, 00:01:26.850 --> 00:01:28.100 align:middle line:90% don't forget the toilet paper. 00:01:28.100 --> 00:01:32.360 align:middle line:90% 00:01:32.360 --> 00:01:35.610 align:middle line:84% And I tried to talk to her about death, 00:01:35.610 --> 00:01:40.895 align:middle line:84% and her mother did in a very different way. 00:01:40.895 --> 00:01:44.060 align:middle line:90% 00:01:44.060 --> 00:01:46.040 align:middle line:84% Sometimes, I got very confused, and I didn't 00:01:46.040 --> 00:01:47.082 align:middle line:90% know what to say exactly. 00:01:47.082 --> 00:01:54.515 align:middle line:84% I wrote a poem to say it called, "I Am Here," for Naomi later. 00:01:54.515 --> 00:01:59.000 align:middle line:90% 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:03.500 align:middle line:84% I want to speak to you while I can in your fourth year 00:02:03.500 --> 00:02:07.640 align:middle line:84% before you can well understand, before this river 00:02:07.640 --> 00:02:12.930 align:middle line:84% white and remorseless carries me away. 00:02:12.930 --> 00:02:15.780 align:middle line:84% You asked me to tell you about death. 00:02:15.780 --> 00:02:17.970 align:middle line:90% I said nothing. 00:02:17.970 --> 00:02:21.960 align:middle line:90% I said, this is your father. 00:02:21.960 --> 00:02:26.970 align:middle line:84% This is your father like water, like fate, 00:02:26.970 --> 00:02:31.590 align:middle line:84% like a feather circling down, and I am 00:02:31.590 --> 00:02:34.560 align:middle line:90% my own daughter swimming out. 00:02:34.560 --> 00:02:39.750 align:middle line:84% A phosphorescence on the dark face of the surf. 00:02:39.750 --> 00:02:42.250 align:middle line:90% A boat circling on the darkness. 00:02:42.250 --> 00:02:47.630 align:middle line:90% 00:02:47.630 --> 00:02:50.810 align:middle line:90% She opens her eyes underwater. 00:02:50.810 --> 00:02:53.030 align:middle line:90% The sun climbs. 00:02:53.030 --> 00:02:54.230 align:middle line:90% She runs. 00:02:54.230 --> 00:02:56.810 align:middle line:90% She decapitates flowers. 00:02:56.810 --> 00:02:59.000 align:middle line:90% The grass sparkles. 00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:01.220 align:middle line:90% Her little brother laughs. 00:03:01.220 --> 00:03:04.910 align:middle line:84% She serves meals to friends no one has seen. 00:03:04.910 --> 00:03:08.870 align:middle line:84% She races her tricycle in circles. 00:03:08.870 --> 00:03:10.790 align:middle line:90% I come home. 00:03:10.790 --> 00:03:11.795 align:middle line:90% The sun falls. 00:03:11.795 --> 00:03:16.590 align:middle line:90% 00:03:16.590 --> 00:03:18.540 align:middle line:90% You eat all day. 00:03:18.540 --> 00:03:20.250 align:middle line:90% You want to be big. 00:03:20.250 --> 00:03:25.380 align:middle line:84% Look how big, you cry, stretching your arms to heaven. 00:03:25.380 --> 00:03:29.520 align:middle line:84% Your eyes stretched by all the half-terrified joy 00:03:29.520 --> 00:03:32.670 align:middle line:90% of being in motion. 00:03:32.670 --> 00:03:38.640 align:middle line:84% The big move clumsily, little love, as far as I can see. 00:03:38.640 --> 00:03:42.840 align:middle line:84% They break everything, and then they break, 00:03:42.840 --> 00:03:49.170 align:middle line:84% and a pool of decayed light sinks back into the Earth. 00:03:49.170 --> 00:03:52.470 align:middle line:84% Writing these words tonight, I am coming 00:03:52.470 --> 00:03:56.040 align:middle line:90% to the end of my 35th year. 00:03:56.040 --> 00:04:02.350 align:middle line:84% It means nothing to you, but I rejoice, and I am terrified, 00:04:02.350 --> 00:04:06.000 align:middle line:84% and I feel something I can never describe. 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:08.050 align:middle line:90% They are so much the same. 00:04:08.050 --> 00:04:12.960 align:middle line:84% So much the sun blazing on the edge of a knife. 00:04:12.960 --> 00:04:16.390 align:middle line:84% We are little children, and my face 00:04:16.390 --> 00:04:18.114 align:middle line:90% has already entered the mist. 00:04:18.114 --> 00:04:22.790 align:middle line:90% 00:04:22.790 --> 00:04:26.870 align:middle line:84% I hear you cry out in the black in the theater of night. 00:04:26.870 --> 00:04:30.350 align:middle line:84% I go in and hold you in my arms, and rock 00:04:30.350 --> 00:04:34.160 align:middle line:90% you watching your lips working. 00:04:34.160 --> 00:04:38.015 align:middle line:84% Your closed eyelids bulge with a nightly vision. 00:04:38.015 --> 00:04:41.150 align:middle line:90% 00:04:41.150 --> 00:04:45.380 align:middle line:84% I get lost too, Naomi, in a forest that 00:04:45.380 --> 00:04:48.290 align:middle line:84% suddenly rises from behind my breastbone 00:04:48.290 --> 00:04:50.690 align:middle line:90% on a night of no moon. 00:04:50.690 --> 00:04:53.600 align:middle line:84% Stars hang in the black branches. 00:04:53.600 --> 00:04:58.370 align:middle line:84% Great, small, glittering like insoluble crimes 00:04:58.370 --> 00:05:01.340 align:middle line:84% ceaselessly calling me toward that thick darkness 00:05:01.340 --> 00:05:03.200 align:middle line:90% under the trees. 00:05:03.200 --> 00:05:08.480 align:middle line:84% I turn sobbing to run, but it is everywhere. 00:05:08.480 --> 00:05:14.150 align:middle line:90% 00:05:14.150 --> 00:05:17.360 align:middle line:84% I wanted to give you something, but always 00:05:17.360 --> 00:05:20.700 align:middle line:90% give you something else. 00:05:20.700 --> 00:05:24.480 align:middle line:84% What do you call it when it is underground like a cold spring 00:05:24.480 --> 00:05:29.850 align:middle line:84% in the blood, when it is a poem written out of naked fear 00:05:29.850 --> 00:05:34.770 align:middle line:84% and love which is never enough, when it is my face, 00:05:34.770 --> 00:05:41.460 align:middle line:84% Naomi, my face from which the darkness streams forth. 00:05:41.460 --> 00:05:44.160 align:middle line:90% The petal falls. 00:05:44.160 --> 00:05:47.340 align:middle line:90% The skin crumbles into dirt. 00:05:47.340 --> 00:05:50.610 align:middle line:84% Consciousness likewise crumbles, and this 00:05:50.610 --> 00:05:53.535 align:middle line:84% is one road the squirrel will not cross again. 00:05:53.535 --> 00:05:56.430 align:middle line:90% 00:05:56.430 --> 00:05:58.920 align:middle line:90% I was here, Naomi. 00:05:58.920 --> 00:06:02.670 align:middle line:84% I will never be back, but I was here. 00:06:02.670 --> 00:06:06.200 align:middle line:84% I was here with you and your brother.