WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.920 align:middle line:90%


00:00:05.920 --> 00:00:10.960 align:middle line:84%
I'm going to end with the
last two poems in the book.

00:00:10.960 --> 00:00:14.770 align:middle line:90%
These are companion poems.

00:00:14.770 --> 00:00:16.540 align:middle line:90%
There are about companions.

00:00:16.540 --> 00:00:25.005 align:middle line:84%
And they take as their
inspiration the second--

00:00:25.005 --> 00:00:35.740 align:middle line:90%


00:00:35.740 --> 00:00:37.360 align:middle line:90%
my mind escapes me now.

00:00:37.360 --> 00:00:38.290 align:middle line:90%
Sorry.

00:00:38.290 --> 00:00:43.330 align:middle line:84%
The second Eclogue of
Virgil, where he writes

00:00:43.330 --> 00:00:51.070 align:middle line:84%
about the young shepherd
boy, Corydon and his love

00:00:51.070 --> 00:00:55.570 align:middle line:84%
for young Alexis
who spurns his love.

00:00:55.570 --> 00:01:02.470 align:middle line:84%
This is alternate takes
of that relationship

00:01:02.470 --> 00:01:05.810 align:middle line:90%
set in a contemporary time.

00:01:05.810 --> 00:01:10.880 align:middle line:84%
They're called "Corydon &
Alexis" and "Corydon & Alexis,

00:01:10.880 --> 00:01:12.530 align:middle line:90%
Redux."

00:01:12.530 --> 00:01:17.120 align:middle line:84%
I'll read them back to
back, because then you'll

00:01:17.120 --> 00:01:19.160 align:middle line:90%
hear the hinge between them.

00:01:19.160 --> 00:01:24.220 align:middle line:90%


00:01:24.220 --> 00:01:28.860 align:middle line:84%
"Shepherd boy, not
the most salient image

00:01:28.860 --> 00:01:33.640 align:middle line:84%
for contemporary readers
nor most available.

00:01:33.640 --> 00:01:37.640 align:middle line:84%
Unless you're thinking
Brokeback Mountain,

00:01:37.640 --> 00:01:41.020 align:middle line:90%
a reference already escaping.

00:01:41.020 --> 00:01:47.500 align:middle line:84%
I did love a Montana man
though no good shepherd rather

00:01:47.500 --> 00:01:54.690 align:middle line:84%
a caveman came spelunking into
that grotto I had retreated to.

00:01:54.690 --> 00:02:00.630 align:middle line:84%
What light he bore illumined
such small space, physically,

00:02:00.630 --> 00:02:02.920 align:middle line:90%
temporally.

00:02:02.920 --> 00:02:06.610 align:middle line:84%
And did he have a
grove of beech trees?

00:02:06.610 --> 00:02:09.789 align:middle line:90%
No, no grove.

00:02:09.789 --> 00:02:14.050 align:middle line:84%
But together we found an
old growth stand of Redwood.

00:02:14.050 --> 00:02:16.690 align:middle line:84%
We gouged each
other's chests instead

00:02:16.690 --> 00:02:20.830 align:middle line:90%
of wood, pledges that faded.

00:02:20.830 --> 00:02:25.720 align:middle line:84%
He was not cruel nor
I unwitting but what

00:02:25.720 --> 00:02:29.300 align:middle line:90%
endures beyond any thicket.

00:02:29.300 --> 00:02:33.350 align:middle line:84%
Example, he took me to
the ocean to say farewell.

00:02:33.350 --> 00:02:36.680 align:middle line:90%
I mean, me farewell to ocean.

00:02:36.680 --> 00:02:39.950 align:middle line:84%
The ocean, for
that matter, to me.

00:02:39.950 --> 00:02:45.230 align:middle line:84%
Us both fatigued, showing
signs of wreckage.

00:02:45.230 --> 00:02:49.400 align:middle line:84%
And that man I had loved stood
back from the edge of things.

00:02:49.400 --> 00:02:51.440 align:middle line:90%
He did not hold me.

00:02:51.440 --> 00:02:54.210 align:middle line:90%
I expected not to be held.

00:02:54.210 --> 00:02:56.810 align:middle line:90%
We all understood one another.

00:02:56.810 --> 00:03:02.960 align:middle line:90%
Shepherd understudy, ocean me.

00:03:02.960 --> 00:03:06.970 align:middle line:84%
And did he go back to
his fields and caves?

00:03:06.970 --> 00:03:12.250 align:middle line:84%
Yes, but they were gone, strip
mining, lumber defoliant,

00:03:12.250 --> 00:03:14.680 align:middle line:90%
sterile streams.

00:03:14.680 --> 00:03:17.080 align:middle line:90%
You knew that was coming.

00:03:17.080 --> 00:03:20.500 align:middle line:84%
Weren't we taught
some starched sermon?

00:03:20.500 --> 00:03:23.290 align:middle line:90%
The pasture awaits us elsewhere.

00:03:23.290 --> 00:03:26.030 align:middle line:90%


00:03:26.030 --> 00:03:27.920 align:middle line:90%
Back up a moment.

00:03:27.920 --> 00:03:33.360 align:middle line:84%
The forest you mentioned
remember instead of a grove?

00:03:33.360 --> 00:03:35.980 align:middle line:90%
Untouched for the most part.

00:03:35.980 --> 00:03:39.910 align:middle line:90%
Some human damage but not ours.

00:03:39.910 --> 00:03:44.220 align:middle line:84%
We left no mark, not there in
the midst of those great trees,

00:03:44.220 --> 00:03:46.740 align:middle line:84%
not in the concentric
rings that might

00:03:46.740 --> 00:03:50.160 align:middle line:90%
have held us far past living.

00:03:50.160 --> 00:03:56.430 align:middle line:84%
Instead I put that man, like
so many others, on paper.

00:03:56.430 --> 00:04:00.600 align:middle line:84%
A tree already gone from
sight, where once it

00:04:00.600 --> 00:04:03.720 align:middle line:90%
had drawn the eyes upward.

00:04:03.720 --> 00:04:08.400 align:middle line:84%
The crest of a mountain,
crumpled thoughts,

00:04:08.400 --> 00:04:11.930 align:middle line:90%
crumpled love.

00:04:11.930 --> 00:04:15.850 align:middle line:84%
Shepherd boy, do you see
the wild fennel bulbs

00:04:15.850 --> 00:04:18.149 align:middle line:90%
I gathered for you?

00:04:18.149 --> 00:04:22.620 align:middle line:84%
olallieberries, new-mown
grass, the tender fruits

00:04:22.620 --> 00:04:28.150 align:middle line:84%
of the coastal fig, I
put them on paper too.

00:04:28.150 --> 00:04:32.530 align:middle line:84%
So fragile, for nothing
is ever going to last.

00:04:32.530 --> 00:04:36.940 align:middle line:90%


00:04:36.940 --> 00:04:40.630 align:middle line:84%
And yet we think that
song outlast us all.

00:04:40.630 --> 00:04:44.830 align:middle line:84%
Wrecked devotion, the
wept face of desire a kind

00:04:44.830 --> 00:04:49.760 align:middle line:84%
of savage caring that recedes
itself and grows in clusters.

00:04:49.760 --> 00:04:52.370 align:middle line:90%


00:04:52.370 --> 00:04:55.820 align:middle line:84%
Oh, you who are young,
consider how quickly

00:04:55.820 --> 00:04:58.400 align:middle line:90%
the body arranges itself.

00:04:58.400 --> 00:05:03.380 align:middle line:84%
How time, the cruel banker,
forecloses us to snow

00:05:03.380 --> 00:05:07.320 align:middle line:90%
drifts white as God's own ribs.

00:05:07.320 --> 00:05:11.070 align:middle line:84%
What else but to linger in the
slide shade of those sapling

00:05:11.070 --> 00:05:15.740 align:middle line:84%
branches, yearning
for that vernal beau.

00:05:15.740 --> 00:05:19.880 align:middle line:84%
For don't birds covet the
seeds of the honey locust.

00:05:19.880 --> 00:05:24.440 align:middle line:84%
And doesn't the ewe have a nose
for wet filaree and slender

00:05:24.440 --> 00:05:27.880 align:middle line:90%
oats foraged in the meadow?

00:05:27.880 --> 00:05:31.600 align:middle line:84%
The kit fox craves
the black tailed hair.

00:05:31.600 --> 00:05:36.430 align:middle line:84%
How this longing
grabs me by the nape.

00:05:36.430 --> 00:05:41.830 align:middle line:84%
Guess I figured to be done with
desire if I could write it out.

00:05:41.830 --> 00:05:44.710 align:middle line:84%
Dispense with any
evidence the way

00:05:44.710 --> 00:05:50.040 align:middle line:84%
one burns a pile
of twigs and brush.

00:05:50.040 --> 00:05:53.910 align:middle line:84%
What was his name,
I'd ask myself.

00:05:53.910 --> 00:05:58.560 align:middle line:84%
That guy with the sideburns
and charming smile.

00:05:58.560 --> 00:06:03.300 align:middle line:84%
The one I hoped that as
from a sip of hemlock

00:06:03.300 --> 00:06:05.415 align:middle line:84%
I'd expire with
him on my tongue.

00:06:05.415 --> 00:06:08.970 align:middle line:90%


00:06:08.970 --> 00:06:11.580 align:middle line:90%
Silly poet.

00:06:11.580 --> 00:06:14.010 align:middle line:90%
Silly man.

00:06:14.010 --> 00:06:20.050 align:middle line:84%
Thought I could master nature
like a misguided preacher.

00:06:20.050 --> 00:06:24.740 align:middle line:90%
As if banishing love is a fix.

00:06:24.740 --> 00:06:28.790 align:middle line:84%
As if the stars go out when
we shut our sleepy eyes.

00:06:28.790 --> 00:06:31.790 align:middle line:90%


00:06:31.790 --> 00:06:34.240 align:middle line:90%
[APPLAUSE]

00:06:34.240 --> 00:06:47.000 align:middle line:90%