WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.560 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.560 --> 00:00:07.890 align:middle line:84% And then these are two poems I wrote in Northern Ireland, 00:00:07.890 --> 00:00:08.790 align:middle line:90% really. 00:00:08.790 --> 00:00:14.550 align:middle line:84% Just-- these are very, sort of almost really conventional 00:00:14.550 --> 00:00:19.260 align:middle line:90% poems of response to a place. 00:00:19.260 --> 00:00:21.480 align:middle line:90% "Night." 00:00:21.480 --> 00:00:23.220 align:middle line:90% "The night is July. 00:00:23.220 --> 00:00:25.530 align:middle line:90% The aura is rain. 00:00:25.530 --> 00:00:28.830 align:middle line:90% The bay is always at low tide. 00:00:28.830 --> 00:00:31.560 align:middle line:84% Green slime covers the sand where 00:00:31.560 --> 00:00:35.160 align:middle line:90% herons stop, look, and listen. 00:00:35.160 --> 00:00:39.060 align:middle line:90% The sand is as thin as clay. 00:00:39.060 --> 00:00:41.460 align:middle line:84% Men in the night leave their caravans 00:00:41.460 --> 00:00:45.000 align:middle line:84% and run across black grass to the River Argideen 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:51.840 align:middle line:84% to claim a position for fishing, like waiting at baggage claim. 00:00:51.840 --> 00:00:53.760 align:middle line:84% The people in the temperance hall 00:00:53.760 --> 00:00:57.570 align:middle line:84% hold a dance that most of them watch from their chairs 00:00:57.570 --> 00:00:59.190 align:middle line:90% bitterly. 00:00:59.190 --> 00:01:02.760 align:middle line:84% They can see their shoes are history. 00:01:02.760 --> 00:01:06.780 align:middle line:84% The world was remade before they died. 00:01:06.780 --> 00:01:10.470 align:middle line:84% The herons on the lee are slick with slime, fermenting. 00:01:10.470 --> 00:01:15.060 align:middle line:84% Lots of money is exchanged in the medieval town. 00:01:15.060 --> 00:01:20.220 align:middle line:84% Beer is fomented in silver silos, and no fish swim. 00:01:20.220 --> 00:01:23.250 align:middle line:90% One day down, carpe diem. 00:01:23.250 --> 00:01:25.830 align:middle line:90% No one knows what's coming. 00:01:25.830 --> 00:01:28.710 align:middle line:84% The nuclear weapons programs continue. 00:01:28.710 --> 00:01:32.520 align:middle line:84% A boy in a trap drawn by an elegant horse 00:01:32.520 --> 00:01:35.340 align:middle line:90% trots through Clonakilty. 00:01:35.340 --> 00:01:38.460 align:middle line:84% Men watch, and women shop organic food 00:01:38.460 --> 00:01:43.530 align:middle line:84% planted in the middle of gourmet olives and jellies. 00:01:43.530 --> 00:01:48.990 align:middle line:84% Thanks and help are prayer words in fair trade and churches. 00:01:48.990 --> 00:01:51.720 align:middle line:84% Just go in and have a drink at dark. 00:01:51.720 --> 00:01:53.790 align:middle line:90% It's a kind of Sabbath. 00:01:53.790 --> 00:01:57.630 align:middle line:84% In a public house, you feel safe with the others. 00:01:57.630 --> 00:01:59.790 align:middle line:84% By now, you know the Black River has 00:01:59.790 --> 00:02:02.550 align:middle line:84% fish and flowers on it, white and shaped 00:02:02.550 --> 00:02:04.530 align:middle line:90% like strawberry plants. 00:02:04.530 --> 00:02:08.910 align:middle line:84% Two neon kingfishers speed by blue. 00:02:08.910 --> 00:02:12.390 align:middle line:84% Everyone is there for everyone else's fun. 00:02:12.390 --> 00:02:15.630 align:middle line:84% Those men in the night aren't so bad. 00:02:15.630 --> 00:02:20.760 align:middle line:84% A body-- this is what it feels, and this is what it feels like. 00:02:20.760 --> 00:02:24.660 align:middle line:84% Sites of massacre and ashes, tin-topped rubble, 00:02:24.660 --> 00:02:29.340 align:middle line:84% porcelain ovens, jails, a waiting hospital. 00:02:29.340 --> 00:02:33.300 align:middle line:84% Not when it's eternal low tide in a place outside, 00:02:33.300 --> 00:02:39.230 align:middle line:84% and birds drain the sand with their appetites."