WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.630 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.630 --> 00:00:03.540 align:middle line:90% My father has a greenhouse. 00:00:03.540 --> 00:00:04.650 align:middle line:90% He's a florist. 00:00:04.650 --> 00:00:07.980 align:middle line:84% And it didn't occur to me till fairly recently that 00:00:07.980 --> 00:00:10.470 align:middle line:90% was a poetic subject. 00:00:10.470 --> 00:00:12.450 align:middle line:90% So I wrote a poem about flowers. 00:00:12.450 --> 00:00:14.670 align:middle line:84% I worked in the greenhouse a lot. 00:00:14.670 --> 00:00:18.030 align:middle line:84% Of course, most flower families do that. 00:00:18.030 --> 00:00:23.040 align:middle line:84% They're usually mom and pop type operations. 00:00:23.040 --> 00:00:25.110 align:middle line:84% This poem is called "Flowers and a Life" 00:00:25.110 --> 00:00:28.920 align:middle line:90% and it comes in nine sections. 00:00:28.920 --> 00:00:31.260 align:middle line:84% But I'm not going to read the parts. 00:00:31.260 --> 00:00:32.850 align:middle line:84% Usually those numbers, it strikes me, 00:00:32.850 --> 00:00:36.330 align:middle line:90% are just a way of avoiding form. 00:00:36.330 --> 00:00:40.650 align:middle line:84% So I'll just read it without the numbers, 00:00:40.650 --> 00:00:41.670 align:middle line:90% "Flowers in a Life." 00:00:41.670 --> 00:00:44.240 align:middle line:90% 00:00:44.240 --> 00:00:46.010 align:middle line:90% "Always back to the flowers. 00:00:46.010 --> 00:00:47.690 align:middle line:90% They were the earliest thing. 00:00:47.690 --> 00:00:50.510 align:middle line:84% My father and his greenhouse for 40 years 00:00:50.510 --> 00:00:54.200 align:middle line:84% surrendering season after season to roses. 00:00:54.200 --> 00:00:56.840 align:middle line:84% The Austrian growers were muddy as roots. 00:00:56.840 --> 00:00:59.480 align:middle line:84% They chewed tobacco, and spat on the ground. 00:00:59.480 --> 00:01:02.090 align:middle line:90% I spit and they laughed. 00:01:02.090 --> 00:01:05.450 align:middle line:84% My clear spit settled like a drop of thick water 00:01:05.450 --> 00:01:06.410 align:middle line:90% on the ground. 00:01:06.410 --> 00:01:09.950 align:middle line:84% Their spit was brown and flecked with sharpness. 00:01:09.950 --> 00:01:12.860 align:middle line:84% So many years in the minds of horticulture. 00:01:12.860 --> 00:01:14.600 align:middle line:90% So much swallowed Earth. 00:01:14.600 --> 00:01:19.580 align:middle line:84% I thought when I grow up, I will spit dirt too. 00:01:19.580 --> 00:01:21.710 align:middle line:84% Don't call it dirt, the old grower 00:01:21.710 --> 00:01:23.420 align:middle line:84% said when I played at his potting table. 00:01:23.420 --> 00:01:26.360 align:middle line:90% This is earth that's here. 00:01:26.360 --> 00:01:28.760 align:middle line:90% Rosebuds on a plate. 00:01:28.760 --> 00:01:32.000 align:middle line:84% Flowers never seemed feminine before. 00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:34.310 align:middle line:84% Only men in the greenhouses surrounded 00:01:34.310 --> 00:01:36.350 align:middle line:90% by a million pink blossoms. 00:01:36.350 --> 00:01:38.660 align:middle line:90% But I was surrounded by flowers. 00:01:38.660 --> 00:01:42.170 align:middle line:84% A small honorary male in a man's world. 00:01:42.170 --> 00:01:43.745 align:middle line:90% I could watch for hours. 00:01:43.745 --> 00:01:46.370 align:middle line:90% 00:01:46.370 --> 00:01:49.340 align:middle line:84% I had assumed flowers have blood in their veins, 00:01:49.340 --> 00:01:53.000 align:middle line:84% but even I understood the orchid is a bloodless creature. 00:01:53.000 --> 00:01:55.160 align:middle line:84% Nothing will ever be so white again. 00:01:55.160 --> 00:01:58.790 align:middle line:84% Their coolness, the damp heat of their mansions. 00:01:58.790 --> 00:02:00.650 align:middle line:90% I noticed this too. 00:02:00.650 --> 00:02:05.210 align:middle line:84% Only the rich asked to see the orchid house. 00:02:05.210 --> 00:02:07.070 align:middle line:84% The florist must be a businessman 00:02:07.070 --> 00:02:10.789 align:middle line:84% in the midst of flying pollen, odor, a desire for sleep. 00:02:10.789 --> 00:02:15.680 align:middle line:84% He knows money does not fade like the flower. 00:02:15.680 --> 00:02:18.380 align:middle line:84% I found lilacs on my own coming home 00:02:18.380 --> 00:02:20.420 align:middle line:90% from school like everyone else. 00:02:20.420 --> 00:02:23.900 align:middle line:84% The National flower was a private odor, 00:02:23.900 --> 00:02:27.380 align:middle line:84% dying We will each one day see the lilac flare up 00:02:27.380 --> 00:02:30.680 align:middle line:90% with its flask of stars. 00:02:30.680 --> 00:02:34.220 align:middle line:84% At the center of the anemone, loveliness stops. 00:02:34.220 --> 00:02:38.300 align:middle line:84% It disappears, tightens, blackens, bristles. 00:02:38.300 --> 00:02:41.900 align:middle line:84% Balls itself into a furry mound of privacy. 00:02:41.900 --> 00:02:44.030 align:middle line:84% Does every woman want to be beautiful? 00:02:44.030 --> 00:02:46.100 align:middle line:90% Not beautiful but a flower? 00:02:46.100 --> 00:02:48.830 align:middle line:84% The black knob of furry sex finally 00:02:48.830 --> 00:02:53.960 align:middle line:84% exposed to the damp petals of red, of purple, white. 00:02:53.960 --> 00:02:57.335 align:middle line:84% Through the thrilling amber to the black cat of privacy. 00:02:57.335 --> 00:03:00.020 align:middle line:90% 00:03:00.020 --> 00:03:01.310 align:middle line:90% You as a flower. 00:03:01.310 --> 00:03:05.330 align:middle line:84% You and myself, who am something reaching to. 00:03:05.330 --> 00:03:07.820 align:middle line:84% If I could hold up one thing to show you 00:03:07.820 --> 00:03:10.010 align:middle line:84% what I mean about myself lately, it 00:03:10.010 --> 00:03:14.250 align:middle line:84% would be this yanked out Swedish Ivy potted in pure air. 00:03:14.250 --> 00:03:14.990 align:middle line:90% No water. 00:03:14.990 --> 00:03:15.980 align:middle line:90% No earth. 00:03:15.980 --> 00:03:18.710 align:middle line:90% And yet not dying either. 00:03:18.710 --> 00:03:21.500 align:middle line:84% But I wanted to show you yourself for once. 00:03:21.500 --> 00:03:23.210 align:middle line:90% The flower has no name. 00:03:23.210 --> 00:03:24.770 align:middle line:90% It has long life. 00:03:24.770 --> 00:03:27.440 align:middle line:84% Its father was a tree in Colorado. 00:03:27.440 --> 00:03:30.710 align:middle line:84% The blossom itself must be yellow and shivers 00:03:30.710 --> 00:03:32.810 align:middle line:90% like a wind bell. 00:03:32.810 --> 00:03:34.430 align:middle line:90% It cannot remember its roots. 00:03:34.430 --> 00:03:37.460 align:middle line:84% But they are knotted like a tree's and heavy. 00:03:37.460 --> 00:03:41.330 align:middle line:84% It has the odor of dirt, like a new mushroom. 00:03:41.330 --> 00:03:45.410 align:middle line:84% Like the Moss rose, it opens its bright face to the sun early 00:03:45.410 --> 00:03:47.840 align:middle line:90% and is alone in joy. 00:03:47.840 --> 00:03:50.870 align:middle line:84% We have loved flowers and poems about flowers. 00:03:50.870 --> 00:03:53.810 align:middle line:84% You told your mother to plant a lilac over your grandmother's 00:03:53.810 --> 00:03:56.510 align:middle line:84% grave because it is the poet's flower. 00:03:56.510 --> 00:03:59.630 align:middle line:84% You read me the Old Man's poem about the asphodel 00:03:59.630 --> 00:04:01.310 align:middle line:90% to make me love you again. 00:04:01.310 --> 00:04:05.540 align:middle line:84% So if I call you a flower this one time, I have reason. 00:04:05.540 --> 00:04:08.240 align:middle line:84% I've always been accurate in my heart. 00:04:08.240 --> 00:04:12.500 align:middle line:84% Where your name, that gold wand, has swept the air before me 00:04:12.500 --> 00:04:13.340 align:middle line:90% so long. 00:04:13.340 --> 00:04:14.360 align:middle line:90% I love you. 00:04:14.360 --> 00:04:16.130 align:middle line:90% I love the yellow rose. 00:04:16.130 --> 00:04:19.700 align:middle line:84% I'm at home with flowers, and will begin this life, 00:04:19.700 --> 00:04:22.880 align:middle line:84% like every other one, with a blossom held out 00:04:22.880 --> 00:04:25.460 align:middle line:90% to the flaming mountain." 00:04:25.460 --> 00:04:28.810 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:04:28.810 --> 00:04:32.144 align:middle line:90%