WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.440 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.440 --> 00:00:04.150 align:middle line:90% Thank you, Jonathan. 00:00:04.150 --> 00:00:07.510 align:middle line:84% I think I'll always remember your image 00:00:07.510 --> 00:00:09.880 align:middle line:90% in the "Garage of Her Faith." 00:00:09.880 --> 00:00:13.300 align:middle line:84% I think that poets, maybe-- that's what poetry is, 00:00:13.300 --> 00:00:16.420 align:middle line:84% the garage of our faith, and we're always writing from 00:00:16.420 --> 00:00:17.410 align:middle line:90% that-- 00:00:17.410 --> 00:00:18.280 align:middle line:90% maybe the basement. 00:00:18.280 --> 00:00:20.500 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:00:20.500 --> 00:00:25.480 align:middle line:84% Sometimes I think I'm in the attic, but OK. 00:00:25.480 --> 00:00:26.780 align:middle line:90% Thank you for being here. 00:00:26.780 --> 00:00:33.040 align:middle line:84% I am so happy to see so many kids here at the book festival. 00:00:33.040 --> 00:00:34.750 align:middle line:90% I was delighted yesterday. 00:00:34.750 --> 00:00:37.780 align:middle line:84% Do you guys all have umbrellas from yesterday? 00:00:37.780 --> 00:00:39.520 align:middle line:84% You have to go get your umbrellas. 00:00:39.520 --> 00:00:41.090 align:middle line:90% They are so cool. 00:00:41.090 --> 00:00:43.840 align:middle line:90% They're the colors of popsicles. 00:00:43.840 --> 00:00:45.707 align:middle line:90% They're really lovely. 00:00:45.707 --> 00:00:47.290 align:middle line:84% I was walking around with my green one 00:00:47.290 --> 00:00:49.970 align:middle line:84% yesterday and this guy came up to me and he said, 00:00:49.970 --> 00:00:50.830 align:middle line:90% do you know what? 00:00:50.830 --> 00:00:55.390 align:middle line:84% With that green umbrella, did you know your hair is green? 00:00:55.390 --> 00:00:58.660 align:middle line:90% Don't tell me those things. 00:00:58.660 --> 00:01:01.930 align:middle line:84% OK, I want to start with a poem about a mother, 00:01:01.930 --> 00:01:08.950 align:middle line:84% and this poem is for my friend Terry Acevedo and for Lola, 00:01:08.950 --> 00:01:11.470 align:middle line:84% and it's called "Mother's Day Celebration." 00:01:11.470 --> 00:01:15.430 align:middle line:84% And actually, the poem was taken from an incident 00:01:15.430 --> 00:01:19.870 align:middle line:84% that happened here in Tucson last Mother's Day. 00:01:19.870 --> 00:01:23.710 align:middle line:84% What is love but feasting atop a grave? 00:01:23.710 --> 00:01:26.980 align:middle line:84% Mother's Day and the Catholic cemetery 00:01:26.980 --> 00:01:30.640 align:middle line:84% is packed with barbecues, mariachis, 00:01:30.640 --> 00:01:34.750 align:middle line:84% and plastic tablecloths laid for picnics. 00:01:34.750 --> 00:01:40.090 align:middle line:84% There, alone with his hands pressed into a burial mound 00:01:40.090 --> 00:01:44.770 align:middle line:84% and in the cool shade of a concrete Angel's wings, 00:01:44.770 --> 00:01:48.010 align:middle line:90% a boy sits cross-legged. 00:01:48.010 --> 00:01:52.600 align:middle line:84% He could be a Yogi concentrating on the orderly column 00:01:52.600 --> 00:01:56.650 align:middle line:84% of black ants that carry one blossom 00:01:56.650 --> 00:02:01.270 align:middle line:84% at a time, yellow Mesquite flowers to their eggs 00:02:01.270 --> 00:02:02.710 align:middle line:90% underground. 00:02:02.710 --> 00:02:06.520 align:middle line:84% Except that it's Mother's Day, and he 00:02:06.520 --> 00:02:10.210 align:middle line:84% is as alone as he'll ever be, staring 00:02:10.210 --> 00:02:14.470 align:middle line:84% at the empty curl of his fingers holding nothing 00:02:14.470 --> 00:02:17.770 align:middle line:84% but the distant mourning of doves. 00:02:17.770 --> 00:02:21.130 align:middle line:84% At desert noon, even the dead enjoy 00:02:21.130 --> 00:02:24.880 align:middle line:84% singing that braids heat waves shimmering, 00:02:24.880 --> 00:02:28.780 align:middle line:84% molten lead between spring blooms. 00:02:28.780 --> 00:02:31.930 align:middle line:84% My friend has come to speak to her mother, 00:02:31.930 --> 00:02:34.930 align:middle line:84% riding the spirit horse of memory 00:02:34.930 --> 00:02:39.100 align:middle line:84% along an underground river this past year. 00:02:39.100 --> 00:02:44.860 align:middle line:84% She lights a candle and brushes debris with her tender palms 00:02:44.860 --> 00:02:50.560 align:middle line:84% from the ant-tilled soil above her mother's ghost face. 00:02:50.560 --> 00:02:54.400 align:middle line:84% Walking between graves, her skin fills 00:02:54.400 --> 00:02:59.770 align:middle line:84% with the guitar's laughing blue cords, with charcoal smoke, 00:02:59.770 --> 00:03:05.950 align:middle line:84% with the boy's mute hands, with loneliness spun by hot wind 00:03:05.950 --> 00:03:11.200 align:middle line:84% each afternoon under the invisible birth of stars 00:03:11.200 --> 00:03:16.530 align:middle line:84% where the dead begin to remember their names.