WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.100 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.100 --> 00:00:04.620 align:middle line:84% Alan Feldman also comes to us from Massachusetts 00:00:04.620 --> 00:00:07.740 align:middle line:84% where he teaches at Framingham State College. 00:00:07.740 --> 00:00:10.350 align:middle line:84% His first collection of poems, The Happy Genius, 00:00:10.350 --> 00:00:13.800 align:middle line:84% was the 1978 Elustondo prize awarded at the University 00:00:13.800 --> 00:00:16.822 align:middle line:90% of Cincinnati, Alan Feldman. 00:00:16.822 --> 00:00:19.202 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:19.202 --> 00:00:42.520 align:middle line:90% 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:45.910 align:middle line:84% Friend of mine once told me, when 00:00:45.910 --> 00:00:48.430 align:middle line:84% you go far away to read your work, 00:00:48.430 --> 00:00:50.890 align:middle line:84% bring everything you've ever written, 00:00:50.890 --> 00:00:55.840 align:middle line:90% and seem to have done that here. 00:00:55.840 --> 00:01:13.790 align:middle line:90% 00:01:13.790 --> 00:01:18.800 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read first from my collection, The Happy Genius. 00:01:18.800 --> 00:01:23.750 align:middle line:84% The title is taken from the Carlos William's poem, 00:01:23.750 --> 00:01:24.500 align:middle line:90% Dance Roos. 00:01:24.500 --> 00:01:28.730 align:middle line:90% 00:01:28.730 --> 00:01:33.620 align:middle line:84% It's a poem about domestic happiness 00:01:33.620 --> 00:01:35.360 align:middle line:84% and loneliness all mixed together, 00:01:35.360 --> 00:01:41.280 align:middle line:84% and in case there are some here don't know it, 00:01:41.280 --> 00:01:43.380 align:middle line:84% maybe I should recite it for you. 00:01:43.380 --> 00:01:51.320 align:middle line:84% Williams writes "When my wife is sleeping, 00:01:51.320 --> 00:01:55.730 align:middle line:84% and the baby and Kathleen are sleeping, 00:01:55.730 --> 00:01:59.000 align:middle line:84% and the sun is a flame white disk in silken 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:05.640 align:middle line:84% mists above shining trees, if I in my north room 00:02:05.640 --> 00:02:11.730 align:middle line:84% dance naked grotesquely before my mirror, 00:02:11.730 --> 00:02:18.470 align:middle line:84% waving my shirt around my head and singing softly to myself, 00:02:18.470 --> 00:02:21.590 align:middle line:90% I am lonely, lonely. 00:02:21.590 --> 00:02:24.360 align:middle line:90% I was born to be lonely. 00:02:24.360 --> 00:02:26.790 align:middle line:90% I am best so. 00:02:26.790 --> 00:02:32.190 align:middle line:84% If I admire my arms, my face, my shoulders, flanks, 00:02:32.190 --> 00:02:35.550 align:middle line:84% buttocks against the yellow-drawn shade, 00:02:35.550 --> 00:02:39.840 align:middle line:84% who shall say I am not the happy genius of my household? 00:02:39.840 --> 00:02:41.628 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:02:41.628 --> 00:02:47.340 align:middle line:90% 00:02:47.340 --> 00:02:54.030 align:middle line:84% And the poems in this book are continuous in a way 00:02:54.030 --> 00:03:01.500 align:middle line:84% they tell the story of love's joys and difficulties, bearing 00:03:01.500 --> 00:03:03.345 align:middle line:90% children, losing parents. 00:03:03.345 --> 00:03:06.720 align:middle line:90% 00:03:06.720 --> 00:03:10.230 align:middle line:90% This is an early poem. 00:03:10.230 --> 00:03:10.980 align:middle line:90% It's called Debts. 00:03:10.980 --> 00:03:14.510 align:middle line:90% 00:03:14.510 --> 00:03:20.850 align:middle line:84% In all the things I kept from you, the loss was mine. 00:03:20.850 --> 00:03:24.450 align:middle line:84% Unreturned library books, a grapefruit knife 00:03:24.450 --> 00:03:28.110 align:middle line:84% left in the rain, girls I saw on the subway 00:03:28.110 --> 00:03:31.990 align:middle line:84% and thought I would marry though in love with you. 00:03:31.990 --> 00:03:38.440 align:middle line:84% In all, nearly 20 sins which I could name and you could not. 00:03:38.440 --> 00:03:41.900 align:middle line:84% Though some were sinned in your presence. 00:03:41.900 --> 00:03:44.270 align:middle line:84% Like the time I thought you ugly as you 00:03:44.270 --> 00:03:49.390 align:middle line:84% came home from the hospital and kept silent. 00:03:49.390 --> 00:03:52.330 align:middle line:84% I never told you of a meal of ice cream cones 00:03:52.330 --> 00:03:58.210 align:middle line:84% I ate before the supper you made me of ice cream cones. 00:03:58.210 --> 00:04:03.170 align:middle line:84% This at great expense to both of us. 00:04:03.170 --> 00:04:06.970 align:middle line:84% I, who could not praise the meal, and you, 00:04:06.970 --> 00:04:08.935 align:middle line:90% all tears and screams. 00:04:08.935 --> 00:04:18.920 align:middle line:90% 00:04:18.920 --> 00:04:26.000 align:middle line:84% This poem was written after a very awful date, 00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:30.500 align:middle line:84% and I tried to sum up in it all the wisdom that I had gathered 00:04:30.500 --> 00:04:33.020 align:middle line:84% about why men and women could not possibly 00:04:33.020 --> 00:04:34.565 align:middle line:90% ever get along together. 00:04:34.565 --> 00:04:37.820 align:middle line:90% 00:04:37.820 --> 00:04:43.160 align:middle line:84% You have to listen very carefully, complicated. 00:04:43.160 --> 00:04:44.135 align:middle line:90% A man and a woman. 00:04:44.135 --> 00:04:46.830 align:middle line:90% 00:04:46.830 --> 00:04:50.870 align:middle line:84% Between a man and a woman, the anger 00:04:50.870 --> 00:04:55.190 align:middle line:84% is greater for each man would like 00:04:55.190 --> 00:05:00.260 align:middle line:84% to sleep in the arms of each woman who would like to sleep 00:05:00.260 --> 00:05:03.410 align:middle line:90% in the arms of each man. 00:05:03.410 --> 00:05:09.080 align:middle line:84% If she trusted him not to be schizophrenic, 00:05:09.080 --> 00:05:14.810 align:middle line:84% if he trusted her not to be a hypochondriac, 00:05:14.810 --> 00:05:19.670 align:middle line:84% if she trusted him not to leave her too soon, 00:05:19.670 --> 00:05:24.640 align:middle line:84% if he trusted her not to hold him too long. 00:05:24.640 --> 00:05:28.810 align:middle line:84% And often, women stare at the word men 00:05:28.810 --> 00:05:34.270 align:middle line:84% as it lives in the word women as if each woman carried 00:05:34.270 --> 00:05:38.560 align:middle line:84% a man inside her and a wall and has crying 00:05:38.560 --> 00:05:41.500 align:middle line:90% fits that last for days. 00:05:41.500 --> 00:05:45.460 align:middle line:84% Not like the crying of a man, which lasts a few seconds 00:05:45.460 --> 00:05:49.020 align:middle line:90% and rips the throat like a claw. 00:05:49.020 --> 00:05:53.400 align:middle line:84% But because the pain differs much as the shape of the body, 00:05:53.400 --> 00:05:57.630 align:middle line:84% the woman takes the suffering of the man for selfishness. 00:05:57.630 --> 00:06:01.380 align:middle line:84% The man, the woman's pain for helplessness. 00:06:01.380 --> 00:06:05.370 align:middle line:84% The woman's lack of it for hardness, 00:06:05.370 --> 00:06:08.190 align:middle line:84% the man's tenderness for deception. 00:06:08.190 --> 00:06:10.800 align:middle line:84% The woman's lack of acceptance and act 00:06:10.800 --> 00:06:13.830 align:middle line:84% of contempt, which is really fear. 00:06:13.830 --> 00:06:17.390 align:middle line:90% The man's fear for fickleness. 00:06:17.390 --> 00:06:20.870 align:middle line:84% He had cars come off the bridge in rivers 00:06:20.870 --> 00:06:27.980 align:middle line:84% of light, each carrying a man and a woman. 00:06:27.980 --> 00:06:31.964 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:06:31.964 --> 00:06:35.460 align:middle line:90% 00:06:35.460 --> 00:06:40.370 align:middle line:84% This next is really two poems from a series of four 00:06:40.370 --> 00:06:44.930 align:middle line:84% written in late October of, oh goodness. 00:06:44.930 --> 00:06:47.720 align:middle line:84% Does anybody remember the year that the Cincinnati 00:06:47.720 --> 00:06:52.700 align:middle line:84% Reds and the Boston Red Sox were playing in the World Series? 00:06:52.700 --> 00:06:54.950 align:middle line:90% 1975. 00:06:54.950 --> 00:06:56.060 align:middle line:90% 1975. 00:06:56.060 --> 00:06:57.272 align:middle line:90% Thanks, John. 00:06:57.272 --> 00:06:58.730 align:middle line:84% God, I don't know what I would have 00:06:58.730 --> 00:07:00.080 align:middle line:90% done without that information. 00:07:00.080 --> 00:07:02.930 align:middle line:90% 00:07:02.930 --> 00:07:05.120 align:middle line:84% They were playing very late in the year in Boston. 00:07:05.120 --> 00:07:08.540 align:middle line:84% The weather was quite dismal and awful. 00:07:08.540 --> 00:07:12.650 align:middle line:84% And I was writing a poem almost every day as a kind of diary. 00:07:12.650 --> 00:07:16.070 align:middle line:90% These are the last two. 00:07:16.070 --> 00:07:18.290 align:middle line:84% The poem is called The late October. 00:07:18.290 --> 00:07:22.080 align:middle line:84% And this is sections 3 and 4 from it. 00:07:22.080 --> 00:07:24.630 align:middle line:90% Nothing but rain all weekend. 00:07:24.630 --> 00:07:28.920 align:middle line:84% More and more leaves down until the lawn, the roads, 00:07:28.920 --> 00:07:31.170 align:middle line:90% the woods are all covered. 00:07:31.170 --> 00:07:35.340 align:middle line:84% Sixth and seventh games of the World Series postponed. 00:07:35.340 --> 00:07:39.150 align:middle line:84% No winner yet, and it's nearly November. 00:07:39.150 --> 00:07:43.380 align:middle line:84% Nearly our third anniversary end of this month, but the marriage 00:07:43.380 --> 00:07:45.360 align:middle line:90% feels tenuous. 00:07:45.360 --> 00:07:47.550 align:middle line:84% She's feeling trapped by the rain 00:07:47.550 --> 00:07:51.240 align:middle line:84% and runs out the minute it's Rebecca's nap time, 00:07:51.240 --> 00:07:53.730 align:middle line:84% and she screams from the caged height 00:07:53.730 --> 00:07:56.070 align:middle line:84% of her crib for the green bead that's 00:07:56.070 --> 00:07:58.170 align:middle line:84% fallen, for the blanket that won't 00:07:58.170 --> 00:08:02.520 align:middle line:84% cover her doll because she herself is lying on it. 00:08:02.520 --> 00:08:06.270 align:middle line:84% And I storm in a second time and storm out again cursing, 00:08:06.270 --> 00:08:11.100 align:middle line:84% I hate this life, so the whole house can hear me yelling. 00:08:11.100 --> 00:08:15.680 align:middle line:84% How many times a week do good marriages go to the brink? 00:08:15.680 --> 00:08:17.150 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:08:17.150 --> 00:08:18.130 align:middle line:90% 00:08:18.130 --> 00:08:20.680 align:middle line:90% Is it the rain? 00:08:20.680 --> 00:08:24.280 align:middle line:84% I remember once some explorers of another planet where 00:08:24.280 --> 00:08:27.100 align:middle line:84% it was always raining started to go 00:08:27.100 --> 00:08:32.830 align:middle line:84% deaf, started to get suicidal, started to drown in wet air, 00:08:32.830 --> 00:08:37.090 align:middle line:84% and only the toughest found his way to a sun dome. 00:08:37.090 --> 00:08:39.699 align:middle line:84% I'll get you a sun dome, I tell my wife. 00:08:39.699 --> 00:08:42.700 align:middle line:90% 00:08:42.700 --> 00:08:45.490 align:middle line:90% Four, this is the final one. 00:08:45.490 --> 00:08:49.000 align:middle line:84% Our third anniversary, shopped around after work 00:08:49.000 --> 00:08:52.780 align:middle line:84% for flowers and a silk bow to put on the light fixture Nan 00:08:52.780 --> 00:08:56.110 align:middle line:84% wanted for painting after Rebecca's asleep. 00:08:56.110 --> 00:08:58.540 align:middle line:84% Then went out to dinner and sat at a window 00:08:58.540 --> 00:09:03.340 align:middle line:84% table facing East toward the reservoir and the moon rising. 00:09:03.340 --> 00:09:06.160 align:middle line:84% Everyone was talking about the Red Sox. 00:09:06.160 --> 00:09:09.850 align:middle line:84% We were planning the next decade stuffing ourselves 00:09:09.850 --> 00:09:14.500 align:middle line:84% when the waitress came by our table and stopped moving. 00:09:14.500 --> 00:09:16.450 align:middle line:90% Isn't it beautiful? 00:09:16.450 --> 00:09:20.080 align:middle line:84% I could see her eyes growing dark and watery. 00:09:20.080 --> 00:09:24.210 align:middle line:84% A pause for the whole self to come flooding up. 00:09:24.210 --> 00:09:28.740 align:middle line:84% Like later when Cincinnati got the go ahead run and Boston 00:09:28.740 --> 00:09:32.460 align:middle line:84% was losing, and Rebecca woke up with a fever, 00:09:32.460 --> 00:09:37.260 align:middle line:84% her legs spasming, and I rocked her and rocked her and gave up 00:09:37.260 --> 00:09:42.390 align:middle line:84% to the chair slow rhythm and her even breathing the last inning 00:09:42.390 --> 00:09:43.556 align:middle line:90% the whole World Series. 00:09:43.556 --> 00:09:51.610 align:middle line:90% 00:09:51.610 --> 00:09:54.040 align:middle line:90% This is a poem about birth. 00:09:54.040 --> 00:10:01.126 align:middle line:84% It originated because my wife and I did very well. 00:10:01.126 --> 00:10:02.440 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:10:02.440 --> 00:10:03.760 align:middle line:90% 00:10:03.760 --> 00:10:06.610 align:middle line:84% We were asked to come back and talk 00:10:06.610 --> 00:10:09.715 align:middle line:84% about it to the other expectant mothers and fathers. 00:10:09.715 --> 00:10:11.491 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:10:11.491 --> 00:10:13.930 align:middle line:90% 00:10:13.930 --> 00:10:18.940 align:middle line:84% I made notes, and I never got to say really what I had to say, 00:10:18.940 --> 00:10:22.390 align:middle line:84% because my wife had so much to say. 00:10:22.390 --> 00:10:26.800 align:middle line:90% So here is what I had jotted. 00:10:26.800 --> 00:10:27.910 align:middle line:90% Notes for new fathers. 00:10:27.910 --> 00:10:32.170 align:middle line:90% 00:10:32.170 --> 00:10:37.450 align:middle line:84% You will not want to make your usual mistakes, but you will. 00:10:37.450 --> 00:10:40.030 align:middle line:84% The gas gauge will read empty when 00:10:40.030 --> 00:10:43.120 align:middle line:90% you start for the hospital. 00:10:43.120 --> 00:10:45.010 align:middle line:84% This is the night you are supposed 00:10:45.010 --> 00:10:49.520 align:middle line:84% to remember your whole life but nothing is happening. 00:10:49.520 --> 00:10:52.690 align:middle line:84% The water fountains stare at you silently 00:10:52.690 --> 00:10:56.230 align:middle line:90% with paralyzed silver tongues. 00:10:56.230 --> 00:11:01.240 align:middle line:84% In the labor room, you press too hard to rub your wife's back. 00:11:01.240 --> 00:11:03.070 align:middle line:90% Her bed rolls away from you. 00:11:03.070 --> 00:11:04.561 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:11:04.561 --> 00:11:07.050 align:middle line:90% 00:11:07.050 --> 00:11:09.090 align:middle line:90% You suggest breathing. 00:11:09.090 --> 00:11:10.230 align:middle line:90% Your wife breathes. 00:11:10.230 --> 00:11:11.640 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:11:11.640 --> 00:11:13.620 align:middle line:90% 00:11:13.620 --> 00:11:16.140 align:middle line:84% You are the coach, but you are not 00:11:16.140 --> 00:11:20.790 align:middle line:84% in the game you run out for ice chips in your white suit 00:11:20.790 --> 00:11:23.700 align:middle line:90% and pretend you're a doctor. 00:11:23.700 --> 00:11:25.860 align:middle line:90% You're not a doctor. 00:11:25.860 --> 00:11:29.010 align:middle line:84% When the nurse checks the fetal heart and tells you 00:11:29.010 --> 00:11:32.350 align:middle line:84% it sounds like a girl, you don't hear anything. 00:11:32.350 --> 00:11:35.100 align:middle line:84% Only the girlish fists of your own pulse 00:11:35.100 --> 00:11:37.200 align:middle line:90% hammering in your ears. 00:11:37.200 --> 00:11:40.140 align:middle line:84% There's a color TV but you don't watch it. 00:11:40.140 --> 00:11:43.770 align:middle line:84% You watch the white sheet rising and falling. 00:11:43.770 --> 00:11:47.430 align:middle line:84% Elsewhere, women are screaming, not your wife. 00:11:47.430 --> 00:11:50.310 align:middle line:84% She is wrestling with an invisible wrestler. 00:11:50.310 --> 00:11:54.750 align:middle line:84% Each around, the opponent gets rougher, some kind of angel. 00:11:54.750 --> 00:11:58.530 align:middle line:84% After he beats her up, he'll forgive her and give her 00:11:58.530 --> 00:12:01.380 align:middle line:90% a baby. 00:12:01.380 --> 00:12:04.380 align:middle line:84% When the doctor comes, you want him to go away. 00:12:04.380 --> 00:12:06.690 align:middle line:84% You've been doing fine all night. 00:12:06.690 --> 00:12:10.980 align:middle line:84% This work has the rhythm of sleep, but it's time. 00:12:10.980 --> 00:12:13.050 align:middle line:90% Why don't they wheel you in? 00:12:13.050 --> 00:12:15.840 align:middle line:90% They leave you out. 00:12:15.840 --> 00:12:18.630 align:middle line:84% They dress you in your paper towel robes 00:12:18.630 --> 00:12:22.800 align:middle line:84% like a man in a giant napkin to sit 00:12:22.800 --> 00:12:25.830 align:middle line:84% at the head of the table waiting for your feast. 00:12:25.830 --> 00:12:29.970 align:middle line:90% 00:12:29.970 --> 00:12:32.010 align:middle line:90% Your wife is so naked. 00:12:32.010 --> 00:12:35.400 align:middle line:90% She may as well be dressed. 00:12:35.400 --> 00:12:41.250 align:middle line:84% Legs apart and lifted, brown antiseptic glue applied, 00:12:41.250 --> 00:12:45.195 align:middle line:84% she looks like an upended piece of furniture in for repair. 00:12:45.195 --> 00:12:48.540 align:middle line:90% 00:12:48.540 --> 00:12:53.370 align:middle line:84% But she's thrilled with her work, glowing with self-love. 00:12:53.370 --> 00:12:58.970 align:middle line:84% She always knew her beauty was in there, now she can see it. 00:12:58.970 --> 00:13:02.780 align:middle line:84% You drive them both home through a landscape made of diamonds. 00:13:02.780 --> 00:13:08.060 align:middle line:84% Your wife is frail, beautiful, your first love all over. 00:13:08.060 --> 00:13:13.950 align:middle line:84% You want to bring her tea on a silver tray with a rose. 00:13:13.950 --> 00:13:16.770 align:middle line:90% Better save it. 00:13:16.770 --> 00:13:17.790 align:middle line:90% First thing you know-- 00:13:17.790 --> 00:13:19.608 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:13:19.608 --> 00:13:23.080 align:middle line:90% 00:13:23.080 --> 00:13:25.140 align:middle line:90% --it's waffle sundae. 00:13:25.140 --> 00:13:26.616 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:13:26.616 --> 00:13:28.590 align:middle line:90% 00:13:28.590 --> 00:13:31.980 align:middle line:90% You wake up screaming, waffles. 00:13:31.980 --> 00:13:33.480 align:middle line:84% I'm going to make you all waffles. 00:13:33.480 --> 00:13:36.610 align:middle line:90% 00:13:36.610 --> 00:13:41.710 align:middle line:84% Leaped from the bed, find the waffle iron in the basement, 00:13:41.710 --> 00:13:44.530 align:middle line:84% and shine it up so you can see your face 00:13:44.530 --> 00:13:48.910 align:middle line:84% reflected grotesquely in the crumbs. 00:13:48.910 --> 00:13:52.240 align:middle line:84% Mixing gallons of batter, you blow a fuse, 00:13:52.240 --> 00:13:55.330 align:middle line:90% so nobody eats for hours. 00:13:55.330 --> 00:13:58.900 align:middle line:84% While the mix breaks down in between the grids and your wife 00:13:58.900 --> 00:14:00.760 align:middle line:90% starts complaining, my kitchen. 00:14:00.760 --> 00:14:03.160 align:middle line:90% My whole damn kitchen. 00:14:03.160 --> 00:14:06.610 align:middle line:84% And you start apologizing for your childish desire 00:14:06.610 --> 00:14:09.850 align:middle line:84% to have waffles, brown and perfect waffle 00:14:09.850 --> 00:14:12.250 align:middle line:84% steaming on the tip of mother's fork 00:14:12.250 --> 00:14:16.410 align:middle line:84% and heading for the lake of syrup on your plate. 00:14:16.410 --> 00:14:18.230 align:middle line:90% Let's face it. 00:14:18.230 --> 00:14:20.315 align:middle line:90% Berth no preparation for this. 00:14:20.315 --> 00:14:22.492 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:14:22.492 --> 00:14:27.230 align:middle line:90% 00:14:27.230 --> 00:14:32.210 align:middle line:84% But they're in the center of the table surrounded 00:14:32.210 --> 00:14:36.860 align:middle line:90% by crumbs from waffles, a sign. 00:14:36.860 --> 00:14:39.320 align:middle line:90% Any sign of yourself? 00:14:39.320 --> 00:14:42.510 align:middle line:90% It's faint but there. 00:14:42.510 --> 00:14:46.200 align:middle line:84% One success in a billion failures 00:14:46.200 --> 00:14:51.972 align:middle line:84% come back to live with you and be your child. 00:14:51.972 --> 00:14:53.964 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:14:53.964 --> 00:15:03.940 align:middle line:90% 00:15:03.940 --> 00:15:05.950 align:middle line:90% It's a poem called Pick me up. 00:15:05.950 --> 00:15:09.110 align:middle line:90% 00:15:09.110 --> 00:15:12.440 align:middle line:84% You think that after your parents have picked you 00:15:12.440 --> 00:15:15.110 align:middle line:84% up all through your childhood that you're finished with that, 00:15:15.110 --> 00:15:16.830 align:middle line:84% but you find that that's not always. 00:15:16.830 --> 00:15:21.590 align:middle line:90% 00:15:21.590 --> 00:15:24.710 align:middle line:84% The day I moved out on my marriage 00:15:24.710 --> 00:15:29.240 align:middle line:84% consummating it by settling into my own apartment, 00:15:29.240 --> 00:15:34.310 align:middle line:84% I called home and broke the weighty news. 00:15:34.310 --> 00:15:37.970 align:middle line:90% It was too much for mother. 00:15:37.970 --> 00:15:42.230 align:middle line:84% This was men's business, divorces and settlements. 00:15:42.230 --> 00:15:45.770 align:middle line:84% She was the comforter, but you were the one called 00:15:45.770 --> 00:15:48.960 align:middle line:90% when there was real blood. 00:15:48.960 --> 00:15:51.600 align:middle line:84% You drove into the city the very next day 00:15:51.600 --> 00:15:55.230 align:middle line:84% to take me to lunch, wherever I wanted to go, 00:15:55.230 --> 00:15:58.950 align:middle line:84% though you'd rather not park twice. 00:15:58.950 --> 00:16:01.740 align:middle line:84% And we went to some expensive steak place 00:16:01.740 --> 00:16:05.850 align:middle line:84% where you probed with gentle practical questions whose 00:16:05.850 --> 00:16:09.870 align:middle line:84% decision, trial period, permanent, 00:16:09.870 --> 00:16:14.050 align:middle line:84% but you made it plain that you liked me, though I 00:16:14.050 --> 00:16:16.210 align:middle line:90% was full of self-blame. 00:16:16.210 --> 00:16:19.930 align:middle line:84% You liked me, and it wasn't all my fault, 00:16:19.930 --> 00:16:24.340 align:middle line:84% though I had not been like you and efficient remember 00:16:24.340 --> 00:16:30.220 align:middle line:84% of all household errands the unfailing pair of bills. 00:16:30.220 --> 00:16:34.210 align:middle line:84% I had worked you pointed out, I had done my best, 00:16:34.210 --> 00:16:38.410 align:middle line:84% and you didn't blame her either just to give me cheap comfort. 00:16:38.410 --> 00:16:42.360 align:middle line:84% You said such things were often both people's fault 00:16:42.360 --> 00:16:44.790 align:middle line:90% or nobody's. 00:16:44.790 --> 00:16:48.090 align:middle line:84% But why did you wait so long to tell me? 00:16:48.090 --> 00:16:50.970 align:middle line:84% Was it that up to then you hadn't liked me 00:16:50.970 --> 00:16:54.570 align:middle line:84% since I was forever putting you down at family dinners 00:16:54.570 --> 00:16:55.410 align:middle line:90% or in my poems? 00:16:55.410 --> 00:16:58.000 align:middle line:90% 00:16:58.000 --> 00:17:00.940 align:middle line:84% When mom died this fall, my first thought 00:17:00.940 --> 00:17:03.670 align:middle line:90% was I had to fly to New York. 00:17:03.670 --> 00:17:07.530 align:middle line:84% I called you from the airport when I landed. 00:17:07.530 --> 00:17:09.930 align:middle line:84% Once more, you had to get into your car 00:17:09.930 --> 00:17:14.160 align:middle line:84% and come for me waiting like an orphan on the roadway, 00:17:14.160 --> 00:17:18.960 align:middle line:84% sitting on my suitcase, my arms, my whole mind intent 00:17:18.960 --> 00:17:21.000 align:middle line:90% only on hugging you. 00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:23.880 align:middle line:84% But when I leaned towards you, the steering wheel 00:17:23.880 --> 00:17:26.670 align:middle line:84% was in the way, and you didn't intend 00:17:26.670 --> 00:17:30.030 align:middle line:84% to risk crying when you had driving to do, 00:17:30.030 --> 00:17:33.640 align:middle line:90% so you brushed me off stiffly. 00:17:33.640 --> 00:17:35.950 align:middle line:84% And we sat calmly together in the car 00:17:35.950 --> 00:17:40.240 align:middle line:84% going home talking about grandpa's hysterics 00:17:40.240 --> 00:17:44.200 align:middle line:84% and the infuriating funeral directors trying to trap people 00:17:44.200 --> 00:17:47.700 align:middle line:90% into buying overpriced caskets. 00:17:47.700 --> 00:17:54.720 align:middle line:84% I chose plain oak, you told me, half asking for my consent. 00:17:54.720 --> 00:17:59.360 align:middle line:84% Of course I said, what difference does it make? 00:17:59.360 --> 00:18:01.900 align:middle line:84% And maybe that made you feel better. 00:18:01.900 --> 00:18:04.045 align:middle line:90% Glad for once, you had a son. 00:18:04.045 --> 00:18:17.790 align:middle line:90% 00:18:17.790 --> 00:18:24.220 align:middle line:84% This is a poem that I wrote about one 00:18:24.220 --> 00:18:28.300 align:middle line:84% of my daughter's drawings when she was a little kid 00:18:28.300 --> 00:18:31.250 align:middle line:90% and what it reminded me of. 00:18:31.250 --> 00:18:33.000 align:middle line:84% It's called One of my daughter's drawings. 00:18:33.000 --> 00:18:36.550 align:middle line:90% 00:18:36.550 --> 00:18:38.980 align:middle line:84% It tries to come out of the paper 00:18:38.980 --> 00:18:43.390 align:middle line:84% and tear at me with its spider hands 00:18:43.390 --> 00:18:47.200 align:middle line:84% and its feet like rakes and its eyes 00:18:47.200 --> 00:18:53.750 align:middle line:84% like red targets and its green hair in flames. 00:18:53.750 --> 00:18:59.060 align:middle line:84% And something else blue and sun like with rays 00:18:59.060 --> 00:19:02.510 align:middle line:90% that Rebecca says, is a vagina. 00:19:02.510 --> 00:19:05.500 align:middle line:90% 00:19:05.500 --> 00:19:08.500 align:middle line:90% Annie with the blue vagina. 00:19:08.500 --> 00:19:09.868 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:19:09.868 --> 00:19:12.610 align:middle line:90% 00:19:12.610 --> 00:19:15.160 align:middle line:84% Though when my wife prints the title, 00:19:15.160 --> 00:19:21.142 align:middle line:84% she changes it to a Picture of Becky's doll. 00:19:21.142 --> 00:19:23.086 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:19:23.086 --> 00:19:28.930 align:middle line:90% 00:19:28.930 --> 00:19:31.270 align:middle line:90% And so it stays. 00:19:31.270 --> 00:19:35.800 align:middle line:84% While pictures of Becky in their plastic frames grow 00:19:35.800 --> 00:19:42.720 align:middle line:84% doll like and strange, and it's hard to remember how she was. 00:19:42.720 --> 00:19:48.270 align:middle line:84% The pain in my penis that day when just tall enough to reach, 00:19:48.270 --> 00:19:49.380 align:middle line:90% she bit me. 00:19:49.380 --> 00:19:50.676 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:19:50.676 --> 00:19:52.410 align:middle line:90% 00:19:52.410 --> 00:19:55.080 align:middle line:84% And I wailed and slapped her away 00:19:55.080 --> 00:19:57.580 align:middle line:84% and she fell against the beer cooler, 00:19:57.580 --> 00:20:01.320 align:middle line:84% and I stood alone in the supermarket watching 00:20:01.320 --> 00:20:03.225 align:middle line:90% the customers console her. 00:20:03.225 --> 00:20:04.998 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:20:04.998 --> 00:20:15.710 align:middle line:90% 00:20:15.710 --> 00:20:19.150 align:middle line:90% Oh, the violence. 00:20:19.150 --> 00:20:25.690 align:middle line:84% I'm out to get you, says Annie with her black parrots nose, 00:20:25.690 --> 00:20:28.600 align:middle line:84% I will dance here on the top shelf 00:20:28.600 --> 00:20:33.130 align:middle line:84% of the bookcase like a fury lest you forget how things 00:20:33.130 --> 00:20:35.245 align:middle line:90% were when I first took shape. 00:20:35.245 --> 00:20:39.464 align:middle line:90% 00:20:39.464 --> 00:20:42.880 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:20:42.880 --> 00:20:55.590 align:middle line:90% 00:20:55.590 --> 00:20:58.410 align:middle line:84% I noticed that-- well, I've often 00:20:58.410 --> 00:21:01.260 align:middle line:84% thought that perhaps the best moment of a person's life 00:21:01.260 --> 00:21:03.870 align:middle line:84% is one that's so quiet and inconspicuous that it could 00:21:03.870 --> 00:21:05.800 align:middle line:90% pass without you knowing it. 00:21:05.800 --> 00:21:08.460 align:middle line:84% And I try to pay attention to quiet pleasures, 00:21:08.460 --> 00:21:11.850 align:middle line:84% and I had a very nice weekend last year, 00:21:11.850 --> 00:21:16.590 align:middle line:84% and I tried to write it all down in a poem. 00:21:16.590 --> 00:21:21.940 align:middle line:84% The thing that was interesting to me 00:21:21.940 --> 00:21:28.120 align:middle line:84% was that I kept having these war fantasies the whole time. 00:21:28.120 --> 00:21:30.700 align:middle line:84% Someone told me that she too felt this way 00:21:30.700 --> 00:21:32.470 align:middle line:84% that when she was particularly happy 00:21:32.470 --> 00:21:34.870 align:middle line:84% she felt the fragility of that happiness and all 00:21:34.870 --> 00:21:36.820 align:middle line:84% that threatened it, but I decided 00:21:36.820 --> 00:21:39.970 align:middle line:84% that there might be something else in back of that I enjoyed 00:21:39.970 --> 00:21:44.050 align:middle line:84% that feeling of fragility, that there was a strange pleasure 00:21:44.050 --> 00:21:45.520 align:middle line:90% to it perhaps. 00:21:45.520 --> 00:21:48.280 align:middle line:84% This is one of my discursive poems. 00:21:48.280 --> 00:21:49.720 align:middle line:90% It's called Before the war. 00:21:49.720 --> 00:21:52.960 align:middle line:90% 00:21:52.960 --> 00:21:54.730 align:middle line:84% But maybe it'd be good for you Arizonans 00:21:54.730 --> 00:21:56.022 align:middle line:90% to hear something about skiing. 00:21:56.022 --> 00:22:00.250 align:middle line:90% 00:22:00.250 --> 00:22:02.860 align:middle line:84% The kids are asleep in their dorm room 00:22:02.860 --> 00:22:05.470 align:middle line:90% on upper or lower bunks. 00:22:05.470 --> 00:22:09.850 align:middle line:84% The crowded steel bed frames, the bare mattresses, 00:22:09.850 --> 00:22:15.430 align:middle line:84% the frosty windows, remind me of Stalag 17. 00:22:15.430 --> 00:22:19.300 align:middle line:84% And the grown-ups arranged around the wood stove talking 00:22:19.300 --> 00:22:21.430 align:middle line:84% about the decade of the '80s that's 00:22:21.430 --> 00:22:27.230 align:middle line:84% upon us and that has started so badly we're not yet at war. 00:22:27.230 --> 00:22:29.800 align:middle line:90% Nan gets up to check on Daniel. 00:22:29.800 --> 00:22:32.660 align:middle line:90% He's sleeping 3/4 off the bed. 00:22:32.660 --> 00:22:35.650 align:middle line:90% His head resting on the floor. 00:22:35.650 --> 00:22:38.110 align:middle line:84% And Becky has gotten in beside him. 00:22:38.110 --> 00:22:40.600 align:middle line:90% She too is sleeping on the edge. 00:22:40.600 --> 00:22:42.430 align:middle line:90% We straightened them. 00:22:42.430 --> 00:22:45.400 align:middle line:84% Though in the night, Mary Kay's Chantal 00:22:45.400 --> 00:22:49.750 align:middle line:84% or maybe it's Ruth's Hannah, says, excuse me, 00:22:49.750 --> 00:22:54.100 align:middle line:84% Danny fell out, would you like me to give him to you? 00:22:54.100 --> 00:22:58.930 align:middle line:84% And she says it just like a waitress. 00:22:58.930 --> 00:23:01.030 align:middle line:90% It's delightful. 00:23:01.030 --> 00:23:03.490 align:middle line:84% We are served our child in our sleep. 00:23:03.490 --> 00:23:05.188 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:23:05.188 --> 00:23:07.930 align:middle line:90% 00:23:07.930 --> 00:23:13.090 align:middle line:84% He lies between us till morning swimming with mule kicks. 00:23:13.090 --> 00:23:17.350 align:middle line:84% And the older kids flow through the Hall at dawn like a river 00:23:17.350 --> 00:23:20.110 align:middle line:90% our kids are immersed in. 00:23:20.110 --> 00:23:24.760 align:middle line:84% One photo I take is a Becky playing cards with Hannah 00:23:24.760 --> 00:23:28.840 align:middle line:84% next to the stove on the porch, their light hair falling 00:23:28.840 --> 00:23:31.600 align:middle line:84% so similarly as they concentrate, 00:23:31.600 --> 00:23:34.540 align:middle line:84% and then all of us seated family style 00:23:34.540 --> 00:23:38.110 align:middle line:84% at the table for breakfast, the innkeeper throwing up 00:23:38.110 --> 00:23:39.160 align:middle line:90% his hands. 00:23:39.160 --> 00:23:43.330 align:middle line:84% We've eaten a pound and a half of bacon. 00:23:43.330 --> 00:23:46.150 align:middle line:84% And the group photo of everyone standing 00:23:46.150 --> 00:23:49.990 align:middle line:84% in the snow beside the cluster of colorful skis 00:23:49.990 --> 00:23:54.040 align:middle line:84% never comes off because I've run out of film. 00:23:54.040 --> 00:23:55.810 align:middle line:90% But here are some others. 00:23:55.810 --> 00:23:59.740 align:middle line:84% Small Becky striding through the smooth loaves of snow 00:23:59.740 --> 00:24:03.820 align:middle line:84% around the loop Hannah and I have made for her, then sliding 00:24:03.820 --> 00:24:07.360 align:middle line:84% into a wire fence and rescued by Hannah, who 00:24:07.360 --> 00:24:10.690 align:middle line:90% just lifts her skis dangling. 00:24:10.690 --> 00:24:15.760 align:middle line:84% Or skiing with Mark Mary Kay and Chantal with Daniel on my back. 00:24:15.760 --> 00:24:20.560 align:middle line:84% And Chantal goes downhill into a tree and starts to wail. 00:24:20.560 --> 00:24:23.300 align:middle line:90% And nobody's impatient. 00:24:23.300 --> 00:24:25.990 align:middle line:84% She keeps asking for more tissues. 00:24:25.990 --> 00:24:27.610 align:middle line:90% She's 11. 00:24:27.610 --> 00:24:30.220 align:middle line:90% She's never been so weepy. 00:24:30.220 --> 00:24:33.430 align:middle line:90% They think it's hormonal. 00:24:33.430 --> 00:24:37.840 align:middle line:84% I see them standing still on their skis, their tall daughter 00:24:37.840 --> 00:24:45.550 align:middle line:84% calming down, and they look like a new wise race of snow people. 00:24:45.550 --> 00:24:49.570 align:middle line:84% And suddenly, I see that I'm happier right now than when 00:24:49.570 --> 00:24:51.390 align:middle line:90% I was 11. 00:24:51.390 --> 00:24:54.550 align:middle line:84% Something I never thought would happen, 00:24:54.550 --> 00:24:58.440 align:middle line:84% though the straps of Daniel's pack press into my shoulders, 00:24:58.440 --> 00:25:03.030 align:middle line:84% and I'm the heaviest and slowest of the skiers, sweating 00:25:03.030 --> 00:25:07.760 align:middle line:84% and panting, but in a safe place among my friends. 00:25:07.760 --> 00:25:10.280 align:middle line:90% And calm today too. 00:25:10.280 --> 00:25:14.390 align:middle line:84% Riding home, my muscles seemed used and eased, 00:25:14.390 --> 00:25:18.110 align:middle line:84% and I love the land we pass under its snow. 00:25:18.110 --> 00:25:21.950 align:middle line:84% Looking like something in history, the villages 00:25:21.950 --> 00:25:26.000 align:middle line:84% and pastures, a man tries to fix in his mind 00:25:26.000 --> 00:25:30.950 align:middle line:84% before going off to war, and which it is good to have had. 00:25:30.950 --> 00:25:35.450 align:middle line:84% Like my daughter's explanation of why the low sun follows us 00:25:35.450 --> 00:25:39.050 align:middle line:84% across the hills and the syllables of my son's 00:25:39.050 --> 00:25:41.240 align:middle line:90% inscrutable speech. 00:25:41.240 --> 00:25:44.540 align:middle line:84% And my wife's flushed beauty beside me 00:25:44.540 --> 00:25:49.640 align:middle line:84% on the front seat and my own love of poignance. 00:25:49.640 --> 00:25:53.390 align:middle line:84% Sure that I've reached the exact happiest moment 00:25:53.390 --> 00:25:56.870 align:middle line:84% and that I can save it as it slides away 00:25:56.870 --> 00:26:03.620 align:middle line:84% by imagining tanks churning up the snow, fireballs mushrooming 00:26:03.620 --> 00:26:06.530 align:middle line:90% on the hillsides. 00:26:06.530 --> 00:26:10.430 align:middle line:84% I showed that poem to Alan Duggan, and he said to me, 00:26:10.430 --> 00:26:13.670 align:middle line:84% you are not taking into consideration 00:26:13.670 --> 00:26:15.965 align:middle line:90% the reality of nuclear war. 00:26:15.965 --> 00:26:17.618 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:26:17.618 --> 00:26:20.810 align:middle line:90% 00:26:20.810 --> 00:26:22.870 align:middle line:84% So next time I'm feeling happy I can go further. 00:26:22.870 --> 00:26:24.637 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:26:24.637 --> 00:26:28.630 align:middle line:90% 00:26:28.630 --> 00:26:30.430 align:middle line:90% Why I shot the president. 00:26:30.430 --> 00:26:34.030 align:middle line:90% 00:26:34.030 --> 00:26:35.875 align:middle line:90% Let's watch the tape again. 00:26:35.875 --> 00:26:37.690 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:26:37.690 --> 00:26:42.500 align:middle line:90% 00:26:42.500 --> 00:26:46.560 align:middle line:84% Clearly, I didn't mean to hurt him. 00:26:46.560 --> 00:26:54.010 align:middle line:84% He waved to me, so I wanted to reach out and touch him 00:26:54.010 --> 00:26:58.930 align:middle line:90% with one long lead finger. 00:26:58.930 --> 00:26:59.575 align:middle line:90% He noticed. 00:26:59.575 --> 00:27:02.200 align:middle line:90% 00:27:02.200 --> 00:27:07.150 align:middle line:84% Right there where the smile blew out like a burst light bulb, 00:27:07.150 --> 00:27:11.410 align:middle line:84% it was clumsy of me, but I kept squeezing off shots 00:27:11.410 --> 00:27:16.470 align:middle line:84% till I got what I wanted, to be held. 00:27:16.470 --> 00:27:18.090 align:middle line:84% It didn't matter that they called 00:27:18.090 --> 00:27:22.270 align:middle line:84% me motherfucker, a big fist went through my belt 00:27:22.270 --> 00:27:26.560 align:middle line:84% and lifted me toward the lights, cameras. 00:27:26.560 --> 00:27:30.580 align:middle line:84% So while I'm still here, I want to dedicate this shooting 00:27:30.580 --> 00:27:37.120 align:middle line:84% to my mother and my father and to the girl I love. 00:27:37.120 --> 00:27:42.910 align:middle line:84% I hit as many people as I could, and I'm sorry for them all. 00:27:42.910 --> 00:27:47.030 align:middle line:84% The president's chest opened up like a cavern, 00:27:47.030 --> 00:27:50.700 align:middle line:84% and I felt safe for the first time. 00:27:50.700 --> 00:27:56.710 align:middle line:84% I hope he likes the hospital, as I already like prison. 00:27:56.710 --> 00:28:02.910 align:middle line:84% Before, I would buy a gun on credit, an airline ticket, 00:28:02.910 --> 00:28:06.120 align:middle line:84% and travel those long red arteries 00:28:06.120 --> 00:28:11.070 align:middle line:84% across America hoping to get established, 00:28:11.070 --> 00:28:15.330 align:middle line:84% better than graduation and all that other shit. 00:28:15.330 --> 00:28:19.560 align:middle line:84% You hit your man and you have a safe career forever. 00:28:19.560 --> 00:28:26.090 align:middle line:90% 00:28:26.090 --> 00:28:33.240 align:middle line:84% That's a nutty poem I try to write a poem every Thursday 00:28:33.240 --> 00:28:33.740 align:middle line:90% afternoon. 00:28:33.740 --> 00:28:36.140 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:28:36.140 --> 00:28:38.900 align:middle line:90% 00:28:38.900 --> 00:28:41.780 align:middle line:84% I was sitting in a bar and these two detectives 00:28:41.780 --> 00:28:45.260 align:middle line:84% are talking about the shooting, and I suddenly felt, 00:28:45.260 --> 00:28:47.870 align:middle line:84% I guess, more sympathetic with the man who did, I don't know. 00:28:47.870 --> 00:29:03.210 align:middle line:90% 00:29:03.210 --> 00:29:04.275 align:middle line:90% I want to read two more. 00:29:04.275 --> 00:29:10.200 align:middle line:90% 00:29:10.200 --> 00:29:11.790 align:middle line:90% This one obviously is new. 00:29:11.790 --> 00:29:14.585 align:middle line:90% 00:29:14.585 --> 00:29:15.210 align:middle line:90% Oh, here it is. 00:29:15.210 --> 00:29:20.540 align:middle line:90% 00:29:20.540 --> 00:29:23.800 align:middle line:84% I was telling a class you say my poems are getting fatter. 00:29:23.800 --> 00:29:25.260 align:middle line:84% It's a very large piece of paper. 00:29:25.260 --> 00:29:28.440 align:middle line:84% This is called House gift poem for Richard Shelton. 00:29:28.440 --> 00:29:31.170 align:middle line:90% I had this strange feeling. 00:29:31.170 --> 00:29:33.480 align:middle line:84% Lois told me that he was going to meet us at the plane, 00:29:33.480 --> 00:29:36.690 align:middle line:84% and I saw him meeting us in those reflecting sunglasses 00:29:36.690 --> 00:29:38.820 align:middle line:84% that he has with his Western hat on. 00:29:38.820 --> 00:29:40.800 align:middle line:84% I said nothing could be stranger than that. 00:29:40.800 --> 00:29:45.900 align:middle line:90% And he didn't meet us actually. 00:29:45.900 --> 00:29:48.300 align:middle line:84% But I wanted to write this poem for him, 00:29:48.300 --> 00:29:51.025 align:middle line:84% because anybody who would meet somebody at 2 o'clock 00:29:51.025 --> 00:29:53.400 align:middle line:84% in the morning, 3 o'clock in the morning at the airport I 00:29:53.400 --> 00:29:56.157 align:middle line:90% thought deserved a poem. 00:29:56.157 --> 00:29:57.240 align:middle line:90% So I wanted to write this. 00:29:57.240 --> 00:29:59.790 align:middle line:84% But really it's about the strange occupation 00:29:59.790 --> 00:30:01.757 align:middle line:84% of being a poet where you write some poems 00:30:01.757 --> 00:30:03.840 align:middle line:84% and then suddenly you get flown across the country 00:30:03.840 --> 00:30:07.050 align:middle line:90% to read them to people. 00:30:07.050 --> 00:30:09.210 align:middle line:84% But you can find out about another poet 00:30:09.210 --> 00:30:10.440 align:middle line:90% by reading his book. 00:30:10.440 --> 00:30:12.930 align:middle line:84% It's like Whitman says, who touches this book touches 00:30:12.930 --> 00:30:17.310 align:middle line:84% a man, and so I happened to be reading Richard Shelton's 00:30:17.310 --> 00:30:19.650 align:middle line:90% book that afternoon. 00:30:19.650 --> 00:30:21.780 align:middle line:84% And there are some lines in a poem of his 00:30:21.780 --> 00:30:24.540 align:middle line:90% that I would use as an epigraph. 00:30:24.540 --> 00:30:28.320 align:middle line:84% In some small land town, a stranger 00:30:28.320 --> 00:30:33.450 align:middle line:84% waits for me to arrive he will take charge of everything. 00:30:33.450 --> 00:30:37.830 align:middle line:84% He will drive expertly down Main Street out of town 00:30:37.830 --> 00:30:42.300 align:middle line:84% toward open country where the sky is half the world, 00:30:42.300 --> 00:30:45.120 align:middle line:84% and those beautiful lines are from the last poem in Shelton's 00:30:45.120 --> 00:30:49.190 align:middle line:90% book bus to Veracruz. 00:30:49.190 --> 00:30:53.210 align:middle line:84% In Cambridge mass, two Jets are heading Southwest 00:30:53.210 --> 00:30:56.900 align:middle line:84% over the steeples, and light from your part of the sky 00:30:56.900 --> 00:31:00.350 align:middle line:84% strikes the wall of a big yellow apartment house, 00:31:00.350 --> 00:31:04.370 align:middle line:84% making it look ripely and alive like a Puebla. 00:31:04.370 --> 00:31:08.480 align:middle line:84% There are a lot of jets, there's another one, the sun off 00:31:08.480 --> 00:31:12.740 align:middle line:84% it's far off body makes it glare like a star. 00:31:12.740 --> 00:31:17.090 align:middle line:84% And there are two inscribing parallel lines west. 00:31:17.090 --> 00:31:20.300 align:middle line:90% I'm feeling transcontinental. 00:31:20.300 --> 00:31:23.750 align:middle line:84% Soon to get on a plane with my new yellow pants 00:31:23.750 --> 00:31:26.940 align:middle line:84% and my shoes from Poland, my wife, 00:31:26.940 --> 00:31:30.350 align:middle line:84% my daughter with her Dr. Seuss encyclopedia, 00:31:30.350 --> 00:31:34.100 align:middle line:84% and by midnight, we'll be asleep over Texas, 00:31:34.100 --> 00:31:37.580 align:middle line:84% and near dawn, we'll descend to Tucson 00:31:37.580 --> 00:31:41.630 align:middle line:84% and you will meet us stepping out of your sunglasses 00:31:41.630 --> 00:31:45.410 align:middle line:90% and a sweat stained desert hat. 00:31:45.410 --> 00:31:49.340 align:middle line:84% A minute ago, under the amber light of the reading room, 00:31:49.340 --> 00:31:51.410 align:middle line:84% the new leaves of the New England 00:31:51.410 --> 00:31:54.920 align:middle line:84% spring creeping like green locusts from their buds. 00:31:54.920 --> 00:31:58.730 align:middle line:84% You just told me that a man who can't walk on water 00:31:58.730 --> 00:32:01.010 align:middle line:90% will go to the desert. 00:32:01.010 --> 00:32:02.210 align:middle line:90% You don't joke around. 00:32:02.210 --> 00:32:03.908 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:32:03.908 --> 00:32:06.140 align:middle line:90% 00:32:06.140 --> 00:32:10.850 align:middle line:84% I mean, you wouldn't consider swimming or doing 00:32:10.850 --> 00:32:13.520 align:middle line:90% the dead man's float. 00:32:13.520 --> 00:32:17.690 align:middle line:84% How strange that we are brothers then when I remember 00:32:17.690 --> 00:32:22.550 align:middle line:84% so well the 40 years wandering with distaste that I've 00:32:22.550 --> 00:32:27.590 align:middle line:84% vowed never to live more than 30 minutes from water? 00:32:27.590 --> 00:32:32.120 align:middle line:84% You plant your desk under a cactus under the moon, 00:32:32.120 --> 00:32:36.260 align:middle line:84% and I am at this moment among the heavy eternal furnishings 00:32:36.260 --> 00:32:41.150 align:middle line:84% of the library where your books tilt along the wall a bit 00:32:41.150 --> 00:32:43.740 align:middle line:90% to the east of mine. 00:32:43.740 --> 00:32:45.390 align:middle line:90% How odd? 00:32:45.390 --> 00:32:49.710 align:middle line:84% I write this letter, a seed that will grow my voice 00:32:49.710 --> 00:32:53.700 align:middle line:84% and the polished stone stanzas of your Knights 00:32:53.700 --> 00:32:55.740 align:middle line:90% are in my hands. 00:32:55.740 --> 00:33:00.720 align:middle line:84% You bite off some pain and some love. 00:33:00.720 --> 00:33:03.660 align:middle line:84% I've talked to your wife several times on the phone. 00:33:03.660 --> 00:33:07.260 align:middle line:84% I liked her accent, the way she says groceries. 00:33:07.260 --> 00:33:09.088 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:33:09.088 --> 00:33:10.920 align:middle line:90% 00:33:10.920 --> 00:33:15.720 align:middle line:84% I see a bag of groceries in the back of the Dusty Jeep 00:33:15.720 --> 00:33:18.660 align:middle line:84% and I've just read your anniversary vow, 00:33:18.660 --> 00:33:22.500 align:middle line:84% the one I think is for her after 14 years. 00:33:22.500 --> 00:33:25.350 align:middle line:84% I mean, you could have made it up 00:33:25.350 --> 00:33:28.590 align:middle line:84% or you could have married again since then. 00:33:28.590 --> 00:33:32.940 align:middle line:84% But it seemed true about going out into the desert 00:33:32.940 --> 00:33:36.600 align:middle line:84% and finding a beginning place as I will soon 00:33:36.600 --> 00:33:41.790 align:middle line:84% be doing with my own wife in that light of chalk. 00:33:41.790 --> 00:33:45.210 align:middle line:84% Maybe you and I won't like each other, 00:33:45.210 --> 00:33:49.830 align:middle line:84% or maybe we'll write to each other till the next century. 00:33:49.830 --> 00:33:51.645 align:middle line:90% Pen pals of the great spirit. 00:33:51.645 --> 00:33:54.780 align:middle line:90% 00:33:54.780 --> 00:33:58.290 align:middle line:84% You all say it's that we're among those who still use words 00:33:58.290 --> 00:34:02.790 align:middle line:84% as if they matter, even though we don't use them the same way. 00:34:02.790 --> 00:34:07.740 align:middle line:84% You are probably taking a walk in an Arroyo. 00:34:07.740 --> 00:34:12.360 align:middle line:84% I am going to take a walk in the rear limpid April sunshine here 00:34:12.360 --> 00:34:15.000 align:middle line:84% in Cambridge, and then get on a plane 00:34:15.000 --> 00:34:20.460 align:middle line:84% and fly to Tucson, where I am depending on to meet me. 00:34:20.460 --> 00:34:24.090 align:middle line:84% Like some helpful scout in a Western, 00:34:24.090 --> 00:34:28.199 align:middle line:84% you will show me how you get water by listening to the Earth 00:34:28.199 --> 00:34:29.505 align:middle line:90% and shaking a cactus. 00:34:29.505 --> 00:34:30.830 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:34:30.830 --> 00:34:32.610 align:middle line:90% 00:34:32.610 --> 00:34:37.350 align:middle line:84% At dawn, the desert wind fluttering my light clothes, 00:34:37.350 --> 00:34:40.050 align:middle line:84% I will be standing in the dry foothills 00:34:40.050 --> 00:34:43.137 align:middle line:90% where you make your home. 00:34:43.137 --> 00:34:45.013 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:34:45.013 --> 00:34:48.300 align:middle line:90% 00:34:48.300 --> 00:34:50.400 align:middle line:84% And it was very lovely, because tonight Richard, 00:34:50.400 --> 00:34:53.040 align:middle line:84% who is babysitting for our daughter and couldn't be here. 00:34:53.040 --> 00:34:56.699 align:middle line:84% And I started to explain spontaneously, 00:34:56.699 --> 00:34:58.980 align:middle line:84% without him knowing anything about this poem, how 00:34:58.980 --> 00:35:01.920 align:middle line:84% you got water out of a cactus if you should be dying of thirst 00:35:01.920 --> 00:35:04.050 align:middle line:84% and it was just so accurate that. 00:35:04.050 --> 00:35:06.930 align:middle line:84% I knew he would say that at some point. 00:35:06.930 --> 00:35:08.786 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:35:08.786 --> 00:35:10.180 align:middle line:90% 00:35:10.180 --> 00:35:16.320 align:middle line:84% This is the last this is a poem called The personals, meaning, 00:35:16.320 --> 00:35:18.510 align:middle line:84% of course, the classified advertisements, 00:35:18.510 --> 00:35:21.000 align:middle line:84% where people in their loneliness send out feelers 00:35:21.000 --> 00:35:22.830 align:middle line:84% to try to come up with somebody else. 00:35:22.830 --> 00:35:27.250 align:middle line:90% 00:35:27.250 --> 00:35:30.820 align:middle line:90% My wife reads them. 00:35:30.820 --> 00:35:33.850 align:middle line:84% She wants to keep abreast of what's available. 00:35:33.850 --> 00:35:36.580 align:middle line:90% 00:35:36.580 --> 00:35:43.690 align:middle line:84% Like a person who owns a house but still follows real estate, 00:35:43.690 --> 00:35:50.740 align:middle line:84% I imagine her back on the market, because I've died 00:35:50.740 --> 00:35:53.545 align:middle line:84% or I've slept through garbage day again. 00:35:53.545 --> 00:35:55.698 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:35:55.698 --> 00:35:58.500 align:middle line:90% 00:35:58.500 --> 00:36:04.320 align:middle line:84% Or one fatal time too often, I've turned away in our bed, 00:36:04.320 --> 00:36:09.870 align:middle line:84% insisting on the right of a depressed, anxious person 00:36:09.870 --> 00:36:11.715 align:middle line:90% to freedom from happiness. 00:36:11.715 --> 00:36:13.132 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:36:13.132 --> 00:36:15.590 align:middle line:90% 00:36:15.590 --> 00:36:20.240 align:middle line:84% The happiness she is always trying to give me. 00:36:20.240 --> 00:36:23.120 align:middle line:90% And how would she advertise? 00:36:23.120 --> 00:36:27.650 align:middle line:84% Humorous carefree man needed for a life 00:36:27.650 --> 00:36:32.540 align:middle line:90% without inexplicable descents. 00:36:32.540 --> 00:36:36.170 align:middle line:84% When she comes back exhilarated from evening class 00:36:36.170 --> 00:36:38.750 align:middle line:84% and tells me all the dirty jokes she's 00:36:38.750 --> 00:36:41.750 align:middle line:84% heard in carpool, like the one about, 00:36:41.750 --> 00:36:46.280 align:middle line:84% how do if elephants have been copulating in your backyard 00:36:46.280 --> 00:36:48.800 align:middle line:90% at night? 00:36:48.800 --> 00:36:51.890 align:middle line:84% And she turns to me in the dark and tells me 00:36:51.890 --> 00:36:54.770 align:middle line:90% she has the hots for me. 00:36:54.770 --> 00:36:58.940 align:middle line:84% And I just want to be alone in my bitterness, 00:36:58.940 --> 00:37:03.980 align:middle line:84% and she just wants to romp with someone in her liveliness. 00:37:03.980 --> 00:37:09.560 align:middle line:84% I think of the personals and I surrender, 00:37:09.560 --> 00:37:12.110 align:middle line:84% though I'll be damned if I'll talk to her. 00:37:12.110 --> 00:37:15.068 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:37:15.068 --> 00:37:19.020 align:middle line:90% 00:37:19.020 --> 00:37:22.470 align:middle line:84% And I concentrate on stretching apart my toes 00:37:22.470 --> 00:37:28.170 align:middle line:84% and letting the pleasure sparks dart around between them. 00:37:28.170 --> 00:37:34.050 align:middle line:84% She doesn't seem to notice how furiously quiet I am. 00:37:34.050 --> 00:37:37.890 align:middle line:90% And anyway, I'm not furious. 00:37:37.890 --> 00:37:42.750 align:middle line:84% I'm a sour sensitive 35-year-old writer teacher 00:37:42.750 --> 00:37:47.070 align:middle line:84% searching for an attractive even-tempered woman interested 00:37:47.070 --> 00:37:47.625 align:middle line:90% in the arts. 00:37:47.625 --> 00:37:49.876 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:37:49.876 --> 00:37:56.660 align:middle line:90% 00:37:56.660 --> 00:38:03.080 align:middle line:84% And as well-made as I'll ever be, I drop off to sleep. 00:38:03.080 --> 00:38:07.520 align:middle line:84% In the morning, she rises to our son's first cries, 00:38:07.520 --> 00:38:12.140 align:middle line:84% and I rise to the groan of the garbage truck. 00:38:12.140 --> 00:38:13.730 align:middle line:90% And think about nothing. 00:38:13.730 --> 00:38:17.090 align:middle line:84% I was so blackly thinking of last night, 00:38:17.090 --> 00:38:21.890 align:middle line:84% except how you can know elephants have been copulating 00:38:21.890 --> 00:38:30.410 align:middle line:84% in the backyard, because you get up in the morning 00:38:30.410 --> 00:38:34.130 align:middle line:84% and find that some of the trash can liners are missing. 00:38:34.130 --> 00:38:36.230 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:38:36.230 --> 00:38:41.030 align:middle line:90% 00:38:41.030 --> 00:38:44.380 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:38:44.380 --> 00:39:01.000 align:middle line:90%