WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.360 align:middle line:90% 00:00:04.360 --> 00:00:07.277 align:middle line:84% We are still looking for material for our newsletter. 00:00:07.277 --> 00:00:10.940 align:middle line:90% 00:00:10.940 --> 00:00:13.190 align:middle line:84% Remember that we have a reception tonight following 00:00:13.190 --> 00:00:15.440 align:middle line:84% the reading in Student Union at the Terrace Lounge. 00:00:15.440 --> 00:00:23.540 align:middle line:90% 00:00:23.540 --> 00:00:27.070 align:middle line:84% Some of you may know that Professor Orlen has a cold. 00:00:27.070 --> 00:00:28.580 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:28.580 --> 00:00:34.040 align:middle line:90% 00:00:34.040 --> 00:00:36.890 align:middle line:84% He asked me what I did when I have a cold, 00:00:36.890 --> 00:00:39.820 align:middle line:84% and I said that I curse and spit. 00:00:39.820 --> 00:00:41.570 align:middle line:84% And he said that didn't do very much good. 00:00:41.570 --> 00:00:43.460 align:middle line:84% What did I find that was very effective? 00:00:43.460 --> 00:00:45.200 align:middle line:84% And I said, well, I usually coughed 00:00:45.200 --> 00:00:46.430 align:middle line:90% a lot just before I went on. 00:00:46.430 --> 00:00:48.280 align:middle line:90% And then I got lots of sympathy. 00:00:48.280 --> 00:00:53.930 align:middle line:84% So give him lots of sympathy, (WHISPERS) 00:00:53.930 --> 00:00:55.280 align:middle line:90% even if he doesn't deserve it. 00:00:55.280 --> 00:00:57.580 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:57.580 --> 00:01:00.800 align:middle line:90% 00:01:00.800 --> 00:01:03.230 align:middle line:84% Steve Orlen has published one collection of poems 00:01:03.230 --> 00:01:08.210 align:middle line:84% with Wesleyan University Press, Permission to Speak, 00:01:08.210 --> 00:01:10.310 align:middle line:84% one chapbook with Penumbra Press, 00:01:10.310 --> 00:01:15.650 align:middle line:84% Sleeping on Doors, one book with Ironwood Press, Separate 00:01:15.650 --> 00:01:17.582 align:middle line:90% Creatures. 00:01:17.582 --> 00:01:19.790 align:middle line:84% He's been teaching in the creative writing department 00:01:19.790 --> 00:01:23.810 align:middle line:84% here at the University of Arizona since 1967. 00:01:23.810 --> 00:01:27.230 align:middle line:84% He's also been associated with the Master of Fine Arts program 00:01:27.230 --> 00:01:29.840 align:middle line:90% at Goddard College in Vermont. 00:01:29.840 --> 00:01:34.310 align:middle line:84% And he's been a fellow at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. 00:01:34.310 --> 00:01:37.820 align:middle line:84% His honors include two awards from the National Endowment 00:01:37.820 --> 00:01:40.580 align:middle line:84% for the Arts and a George Dillon Memorial 00:01:40.580 --> 00:01:43.070 align:middle line:90% Prize from Poetry magazine. 00:01:43.070 --> 00:01:44.570 align:middle line:84% Those of you who've heard him before 00:01:44.570 --> 00:01:45.770 align:middle line:84% know that you'll have a great treat 00:01:45.770 --> 00:01:46.937 align:middle line:90% in listening to Steve Orlen. 00:01:46.937 --> 00:01:49.365 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:01:49.365 --> 00:01:57.720 align:middle line:90% 00:01:57.720 --> 00:02:00.140 align:middle line:90% I got my throat disks. 00:02:00.140 --> 00:02:02.690 align:middle line:90% Get my hot tea. 00:02:02.690 --> 00:02:06.050 align:middle line:90% Make my preparations here. 00:02:06.050 --> 00:02:09.455 align:middle line:90% It should be chicken soup. 00:02:09.455 --> 00:02:10.160 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:02:10.160 --> 00:02:17.700 align:middle line:90% 00:02:17.700 --> 00:02:21.420 align:middle line:84% You may think there's whiskey in there, but there may be. 00:02:21.420 --> 00:02:26.050 align:middle line:90% 00:02:26.050 --> 00:02:28.260 align:middle line:90% I'm going to start with a-- 00:02:28.260 --> 00:02:30.520 align:middle line:84% how can you read with a throat lozenge? 00:02:30.520 --> 00:02:31.740 align:middle line:90% Hello, and how do you do? 00:02:31.740 --> 00:02:33.255 align:middle line:90% Put it over here, OK. 00:02:33.255 --> 00:02:35.376 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:35.376 --> 00:02:38.130 align:middle line:90% 00:02:38.130 --> 00:02:39.720 align:middle line:90% I don't think I can do it. 00:02:39.720 --> 00:02:42.930 align:middle line:84% I'm going to start with a short poem, which is called Prologue. 00:02:42.930 --> 00:02:46.260 align:middle line:84% Name is Prologue, the prologue poem to a book called 00:02:46.260 --> 00:02:47.220 align:middle line:90% Separate Creatures. 00:02:47.220 --> 00:02:49.240 align:middle line:90% Can y'all hear me? 00:02:49.240 --> 00:02:49.740 align:middle line:90% Yeah? 00:02:49.740 --> 00:02:53.910 align:middle line:90% 00:02:53.910 --> 00:02:56.670 align:middle line:84% Someone is pushing a stone out of place. 00:02:56.670 --> 00:03:01.800 align:middle line:84% And someone is pushing it back gently, without intention. 00:03:01.800 --> 00:03:04.830 align:middle line:84% I wanted to write a lyric while the world slept. 00:03:04.830 --> 00:03:07.230 align:middle line:90% I wanted to write your name. 00:03:07.230 --> 00:03:09.180 align:middle line:90% But the hours passed. 00:03:09.180 --> 00:03:12.210 align:middle line:84% Gray light seeped through my curtain. 00:03:12.210 --> 00:03:14.340 align:middle line:90% The light turned me. 00:03:14.340 --> 00:03:16.800 align:middle line:84% Children gathered in groups on the street 00:03:16.800 --> 00:03:20.430 align:middle line:84% then broke and went their long ways. 00:03:20.430 --> 00:03:24.660 align:middle line:84% A story unfolded, partial and without relief, 00:03:24.660 --> 00:03:29.610 align:middle line:84% the details so intimate, for the moment, I forgot your name. 00:03:29.610 --> 00:03:32.520 align:middle line:84% The light turned, and I forgot your name. 00:03:32.520 --> 00:03:42.420 align:middle line:90% 00:03:42.420 --> 00:03:46.080 align:middle line:84% I did hear some good news today you'll be happy to hear. 00:03:46.080 --> 00:03:50.070 align:middle line:84% The Red Sox fans here will know that Don Zimmer's been fired. 00:03:50.070 --> 00:03:54.210 align:middle line:84% And they've hired Johnny Anderson 00:03:54.210 --> 00:03:57.990 align:middle line:84% to be their third baseman and acting manager. 00:03:57.990 --> 00:03:59.706 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:59.706 --> 00:04:01.594 align:middle line:90% 00:04:01.594 --> 00:04:04.185 align:middle line:90% I thought you'd be pleased. 00:04:04.185 --> 00:04:08.340 align:middle line:84% The next poem is called The Aga Khan. 00:04:08.340 --> 00:04:14.130 align:middle line:84% It's a poem, basically a true poem about my aunt 00:04:14.130 --> 00:04:17.190 align:middle line:84% who died when I was in my early teens. 00:04:17.190 --> 00:04:19.589 align:middle line:90% She was a very beautiful woman. 00:04:19.589 --> 00:04:21.750 align:middle line:84% I think she was really my first love. 00:04:21.750 --> 00:04:27.810 align:middle line:84% And she was very wealthy, told great stories, and was, 00:04:27.810 --> 00:04:30.930 align:middle line:84% I guess, something of a 1950s jet-setter. 00:04:30.930 --> 00:04:33.750 align:middle line:84% And she showed me a ring once that unscrewed. 00:04:33.750 --> 00:04:37.390 align:middle line:84% And when she tapped it, little tiny carved ivory elephants 00:04:37.390 --> 00:04:37.890 align:middle line:90% came out. 00:04:37.890 --> 00:04:39.960 align:middle line:84% There were 13 of them in the ring. 00:04:39.960 --> 00:04:43.740 align:middle line:84% And she claimed that the Aga Khan had given it to her. 00:04:43.740 --> 00:04:45.840 align:middle line:90% It was possible. 00:04:45.840 --> 00:04:47.690 align:middle line:84% This poem is called The Aga Khan. 00:04:47.690 --> 00:04:50.330 align:middle line:90% 00:04:50.330 --> 00:04:53.210 align:middle line:84% My aunt Bibi used to visit by surprise 00:04:53.210 --> 00:04:57.320 align:middle line:84% with her husband, uncle Bob, a Cadillac convertible, 00:04:57.320 --> 00:05:02.480 align:middle line:84% and silver furs and the 13 tiny carved ivory elephant 00:05:02.480 --> 00:05:05.780 align:middle line:84% herded into a ring, given her, she said, 00:05:05.780 --> 00:05:10.130 align:middle line:84% by the Aga Khan, who I imagined rode those elephants 00:05:10.130 --> 00:05:13.880 align:middle line:84% in and out of the ring on her finger. 00:05:13.880 --> 00:05:17.600 align:middle line:84% The summer Bibi laid down on mother's bed and moaned, 00:05:17.600 --> 00:05:20.840 align:middle line:84% I could see her beauty reflected in the mirror 00:05:20.840 --> 00:05:24.260 align:middle line:84% as I stood in the kitchen, looking in. 00:05:24.260 --> 00:05:29.120 align:middle line:84% I saw the scars criss-cross her back and fanny. 00:05:29.120 --> 00:05:31.610 align:middle line:84% After the doctor shot her up, she 00:05:31.610 --> 00:05:35.390 align:middle line:84% laughed, her eyelids fluttering up and down. 00:05:35.390 --> 00:05:38.630 align:middle line:84% Then she sat in the parlor, playing gin. 00:05:38.630 --> 00:05:43.070 align:middle line:84% Father took me out for a game of catch, muttering, morphine, 00:05:43.070 --> 00:05:46.370 align:middle line:90% morphine, son of a bitch. 00:05:46.370 --> 00:05:49.070 align:middle line:84% And when, two years later, I saw my mother, 00:05:49.070 --> 00:05:51.980 align:middle line:84% all dolled up at the funeral, kiss my uncle 00:05:51.980 --> 00:05:56.480 align:middle line:84% Bob, lipstick streaking across his cheek, when 00:05:56.480 --> 00:06:00.470 align:middle line:84% I saw the draped casket and the people milling around, 00:06:00.470 --> 00:06:04.850 align:middle line:84% I snuck off to the men's room and tried to laugh Aunt Bibi's 00:06:04.850 --> 00:06:08.360 align:middle line:84% laugh and wondered, whatever happened to the Aga 00:06:08.360 --> 00:06:11.000 align:middle line:84% Khan, that son of a bitch who used 00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:14.810 align:middle line:84% to ride those elephants in and out of the ring? 00:06:14.810 --> 00:06:16.580 align:middle line:84% And what a conqueror he must have 00:06:16.580 --> 00:06:20.930 align:middle line:84% been, her protector, friend, on his passage 00:06:20.930 --> 00:06:23.790 align:middle line:84% in and out of that tiny universe. 00:06:23.790 --> 00:06:25.280 align:middle line:90% And when would he ever stop? 00:06:25.280 --> 00:06:40.832 align:middle line:90% 00:06:40.832 --> 00:06:44.250 align:middle line:84% The next poem is called Disguise and is 00:06:44.250 --> 00:06:47.160 align:middle line:84% dedicated to my godson Bodie Orlen-Anderson. 00:06:47.160 --> 00:06:51.260 align:middle line:90% 00:06:51.260 --> 00:06:54.680 align:middle line:84% At the window in autumn when the leaves fall down, 00:06:54.680 --> 00:07:00.050 align:middle line:84% mama calls to her boy, little mouse, mausele. 00:07:00.050 --> 00:07:03.290 align:middle line:84% Nothing is farther away than the sounds of leaves 00:07:03.290 --> 00:07:05.870 align:middle line:90% falling and a voice rising. 00:07:05.870 --> 00:07:10.700 align:middle line:84% And the mouse, frail, hopeful, trying to escape 00:07:10.700 --> 00:07:15.410 align:middle line:84% gives in to every crumb of his mother's calling voice. 00:07:15.410 --> 00:07:18.830 align:middle line:84% He will lie in bed with lamp light on his forehead, 00:07:18.830 --> 00:07:21.530 align:middle line:90% locked in his book of dreams. 00:07:21.530 --> 00:07:26.660 align:middle line:84% But now he creeps to the window, lifts the corner of the shade. 00:07:26.660 --> 00:07:30.560 align:middle line:84% The first light comes from the first hope. 00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:34.910 align:middle line:84% Henry Lion and Marvin Bear are the stars propped up 00:07:34.910 --> 00:07:37.430 align:middle line:90% near the immense ceiling. 00:07:37.430 --> 00:07:39.170 align:middle line:90% Papa put them there. 00:07:39.170 --> 00:07:41.480 align:middle line:90% Mama puts them out. 00:07:41.480 --> 00:07:46.550 align:middle line:84% Stars are the distant future, or was it the distant past? 00:07:46.550 --> 00:07:51.110 align:middle line:84% Their light comes down and stifles everything that grows. 00:07:51.110 --> 00:07:53.840 align:middle line:84% Soon, snow will pack around the tree. 00:07:53.840 --> 00:07:56.840 align:middle line:90% And Marvin Bear will smile down. 00:07:56.840 --> 00:07:59.780 align:middle line:90% He's charming, and he's real. 00:07:59.780 --> 00:08:03.110 align:middle line:84% God has the names of animals and stars written 00:08:03.110 --> 00:08:05.870 align:middle line:90% beside each other in a book. 00:08:05.870 --> 00:08:07.460 align:middle line:90% What did mama say? 00:08:07.460 --> 00:08:08.900 align:middle line:90% God is exquisite. 00:08:08.900 --> 00:08:14.270 align:middle line:84% God can never quite come to his decision about the world. 00:08:14.270 --> 00:08:17.540 align:middle line:84% Mama takes off her dress by the fire. 00:08:17.540 --> 00:08:19.130 align:middle line:90% Papa whistles. 00:08:19.130 --> 00:08:22.880 align:middle line:84% What's a whistle but a music you can see through? 00:08:22.880 --> 00:08:25.820 align:middle line:84% The boy is mad because the leaves are gone. 00:08:25.820 --> 00:08:27.650 align:middle line:90% The trees are black. 00:08:27.650 --> 00:08:32.669 align:middle line:84% Everything outdoors is disguised as something else. 00:08:32.669 --> 00:08:35.720 align:middle line:84% That's the first snow, his mother said. 00:08:35.720 --> 00:08:38.720 align:middle line:84% Not true, said father, it's sleet. 00:08:38.720 --> 00:08:40.549 align:middle line:90% Go to bed anyhow. 00:08:40.549 --> 00:08:44.300 align:middle line:84% He kisses his father's wrist and tries to sleep. 00:08:44.300 --> 00:08:47.000 align:middle line:84% God, who's made of snow and light, 00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:49.625 align:middle line:90% sighs but never, never sleeps. 00:08:49.625 --> 00:09:11.926 align:middle line:90% 00:09:11.926 --> 00:09:14.652 align:middle line:84% The next poem is called Unwritten Letters. 00:09:14.652 --> 00:09:19.480 align:middle line:90% 00:09:19.480 --> 00:09:21.130 align:middle line:84% This is one of those letters I meant 00:09:21.130 --> 00:09:24.640 align:middle line:84% to write while shaving or walking the dog. 00:09:24.640 --> 00:09:29.920 align:middle line:84% It always begins, dear brother or dear friend. 00:09:29.920 --> 00:09:33.460 align:middle line:84% When I was a child, I wrote things down and sewed the words 00:09:33.460 --> 00:09:36.580 align:middle line:84% into sleeves, thoughts like clouds that 00:09:36.580 --> 00:09:39.130 align:middle line:90% changed when I watched them. 00:09:39.130 --> 00:09:42.130 align:middle line:84% I buried them with the bottle caps, the matchbooks 00:09:42.130 --> 00:09:44.920 align:middle line:90% in the backyard under the elm. 00:09:44.920 --> 00:09:47.680 align:middle line:90% I meant to dig them up. 00:09:47.680 --> 00:09:52.480 align:middle line:84% Years later, I think our lives change ceaselessly. 00:09:52.480 --> 00:09:55.330 align:middle line:90% How much older we have grown. 00:09:55.330 --> 00:09:59.560 align:middle line:84% If I write this letter, this is how you'll remember me, 00:09:59.560 --> 00:10:04.300 align:middle line:84% the curtains shut, the sun going down, the cells of my body 00:10:04.300 --> 00:10:05.950 align:middle line:90% stopped. 00:10:05.950 --> 00:10:08.200 align:middle line:84% I must have been thinking of you, 00:10:08.200 --> 00:10:12.070 align:middle line:84% of all we've said or left unsaid, 00:10:12.070 --> 00:10:15.140 align:middle line:84% of all the things we meant to do. 00:10:15.140 --> 00:10:18.430 align:middle line:84% There is nothing that I meant to say. 00:10:18.430 --> 00:10:21.040 align:middle line:84% There's a mirror right above my desk. 00:10:21.040 --> 00:10:24.070 align:middle line:90% When I look up, there I am. 00:10:24.070 --> 00:10:25.720 align:middle line:90% The eyes drift. 00:10:25.720 --> 00:10:28.660 align:middle line:90% My face has lost its symmetry. 00:10:28.660 --> 00:10:32.050 align:middle line:90% The two halves live separately. 00:10:32.050 --> 00:10:35.110 align:middle line:84% Is this what happens to people alone? 00:10:35.110 --> 00:10:37.390 align:middle line:84% I'm afraid when you see me again, 00:10:37.390 --> 00:10:40.660 align:middle line:84% my face will suffer its parts unequally. 00:10:40.660 --> 00:10:44.530 align:middle line:84% One side will limp after the other, always the younger 00:10:44.530 --> 00:10:48.160 align:middle line:90% brother, unable to catch up. 00:10:48.160 --> 00:10:52.400 align:middle line:84% When I look in the mirror, sometimes I see your face, 00:10:52.400 --> 00:10:56.170 align:middle line:84% the eyes unfocused, settled within. 00:10:56.170 --> 00:11:00.130 align:middle line:84% The mouth says nothing now, content to wait. 00:11:00.130 --> 00:11:02.860 align:middle line:84% If we reached out to touch one another, 00:11:02.860 --> 00:11:07.030 align:middle line:84% we would find the glass dark and getting darker. 00:11:07.030 --> 00:11:12.190 align:middle line:84% To bring the two together requires patience, tact. 00:11:12.190 --> 00:11:14.750 align:middle line:90% My face is like the life I lead. 00:11:14.750 --> 00:11:17.260 align:middle line:90% I meant to say, I'm doing fine. 00:11:17.260 --> 00:11:18.670 align:middle line:90% I can't describe it. 00:11:18.670 --> 00:11:29.700 align:middle line:90% 00:11:29.700 --> 00:11:33.290 align:middle line:84% I was looking at that poem and the prologue poem in this book. 00:11:33.290 --> 00:11:35.690 align:middle line:84% And I must have lent the book to somebody 00:11:35.690 --> 00:11:38.820 align:middle line:84% or I got somebody else's copy because there were notes in it. 00:11:38.820 --> 00:11:40.398 align:middle line:84% In the first poem, that prologue, 00:11:40.398 --> 00:11:41.690 align:middle line:90% it has somebody pushing a rock. 00:11:41.690 --> 00:11:45.830 align:middle line:90% It says Sisyphus next to it. 00:11:45.830 --> 00:11:48.398 align:middle line:84% And then next to the Unwritten Letters, 00:11:48.398 --> 00:11:49.565 align:middle line:90% it says, is this narcissism? 00:11:49.565 --> 00:11:51.950 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:11:51.950 --> 00:11:55.880 align:middle line:84% Somebody knows their myth, I guess. 00:11:55.880 --> 00:11:59.340 align:middle line:84% No, it isn't narcissism just curiosity. 00:11:59.340 --> 00:12:01.231 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:12:01.231 --> 00:12:04.975 align:middle line:90% 00:12:04.975 --> 00:12:06.350 align:middle line:84% I'm gonna have some more of this. 00:12:06.350 --> 00:12:08.775 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:12:08.775 --> 00:12:14.368 align:middle line:90% 00:12:14.368 --> 00:12:15.910 align:middle line:84% There's a little anesthetic in there. 00:12:15.910 --> 00:12:17.380 align:middle line:90% That helps too. 00:12:17.380 --> 00:12:20.095 align:middle line:84% This one's called Friends for John Anderson. 00:12:20.095 --> 00:12:22.630 align:middle line:90% 00:12:22.630 --> 00:12:24.850 align:middle line:84% Down by the river along the railroad 00:12:24.850 --> 00:12:29.530 align:middle line:84% tracks on a cool August day, we started our journey, 00:12:29.530 --> 00:12:32.920 align:middle line:84% trying to get from one country to the next. 00:12:32.920 --> 00:12:35.020 align:middle line:84% We knew the language because we learned it 00:12:35.020 --> 00:12:37.660 align:middle line:84% outside the old mansion with the dogs 00:12:37.660 --> 00:12:40.510 align:middle line:84% and cats and a little schoolmaster who 00:12:40.510 --> 00:12:43.120 align:middle line:90% finally chased us off. 00:12:43.120 --> 00:12:45.550 align:middle line:90% But we were good big fellows. 00:12:45.550 --> 00:12:49.030 align:middle line:84% People along the road wrapped themselves in wool 00:12:49.030 --> 00:12:51.670 align:middle line:90% and drank a heavy beer. 00:12:51.670 --> 00:12:54.430 align:middle line:84% Do you remember, we were so sure of ourselves 00:12:54.430 --> 00:12:59.560 align:middle line:84% that despair was short-lived and a welcome change of heart? 00:12:59.560 --> 00:13:04.720 align:middle line:84% We went from city to city, every detail lodging in my memory. 00:13:04.720 --> 00:13:07.750 align:middle line:84% And walking like that, I had no desire 00:13:07.750 --> 00:13:11.110 align:middle line:84% to choose one place over another. 00:13:11.110 --> 00:13:14.330 align:middle line:84% Don't ask me how much we influenced each other, 00:13:14.330 --> 00:13:19.180 align:middle line:84% picking up accents, exchanging our nicknames and hats. 00:13:19.180 --> 00:13:22.570 align:middle line:84% Not only that, but the graveyards under the oaks 00:13:22.570 --> 00:13:24.490 align:middle line:90% gave life meaning. 00:13:24.490 --> 00:13:27.430 align:middle line:84% You said that though men die, they're 00:13:27.430 --> 00:13:30.490 align:middle line:90% only proving how human we are. 00:13:30.490 --> 00:13:33.460 align:middle line:84% But then in the capital, remember how 00:13:33.460 --> 00:13:36.070 align:middle line:90% every passerby stared at us? 00:13:36.070 --> 00:13:39.700 align:middle line:84% How in the border village, that woman cut open her arm 00:13:39.700 --> 00:13:44.530 align:middle line:84% and there was no blood, only flat, lacquered veins? 00:13:44.530 --> 00:13:49.150 align:middle line:84% We were no longer living the life of our times. 00:13:49.150 --> 00:13:53.350 align:middle line:84% Let's go home, you said one morning, stirring the fire. 00:13:53.350 --> 00:13:55.240 align:middle line:90% But I knew better. 00:13:55.240 --> 00:13:58.930 align:middle line:84% We stood by the great ocean, having slept all night 00:13:58.930 --> 00:14:01.240 align:middle line:90% on the pebbly shore. 00:14:01.240 --> 00:14:05.410 align:middle line:84% Under the froth, great depths of water slept. 00:14:05.410 --> 00:14:09.820 align:middle line:84% I said, we must start to suffer again so we may learn more. 00:14:09.820 --> 00:14:14.830 align:middle line:84% And you said, no, we must travel to the fat lands across the sea 00:14:14.830 --> 00:14:17.260 align:middle line:90% and do some research there. 00:14:17.260 --> 00:14:19.150 align:middle line:90% Or did I say that? 00:14:19.150 --> 00:14:21.070 align:middle line:84% Do you remember who said there would be 00:14:21.070 --> 00:14:22.870 align:middle line:90% good living and good weather? 00:14:22.870 --> 00:14:41.630 align:middle line:90% 00:14:41.630 --> 00:14:48.080 align:middle line:84% Next poem is a narrative poem from a childhood memory 00:14:48.080 --> 00:14:52.940 align:middle line:84% about coming home from school, cutting through the woods 00:14:52.940 --> 00:14:58.152 align:middle line:84% one day, and finding a hand sticking up out of the snow. 00:14:58.152 --> 00:15:00.110 align:middle line:84% Obviously, there was a dead person under there. 00:15:00.110 --> 00:15:02.930 align:middle line:90% But I didn't know. 00:15:02.930 --> 00:15:06.650 align:middle line:90% It's called First Story. 00:15:06.650 --> 00:15:09.920 align:middle line:84% Thick snow, the path, an evergreen 00:15:09.920 --> 00:15:13.370 align:middle line:90% hung above an ice-locked stream. 00:15:13.370 --> 00:15:15.680 align:middle line:84% Home through the woods, he found a hand 00:15:15.680 --> 00:15:17.960 align:middle line:90% thrusting up from the snow. 00:15:17.960 --> 00:15:19.580 align:middle line:90% His dog growled. 00:15:19.580 --> 00:15:22.640 align:middle line:90% The hand was frozen blue. 00:15:22.640 --> 00:15:24.950 align:middle line:84% He was afraid to tell his father, whom 00:15:24.950 --> 00:15:29.510 align:middle line:84% he told all his secrets, afraid to touch the stiff, 00:15:29.510 --> 00:15:33.830 align:middle line:84% curled fingers, or enter the cave of palm. 00:15:33.830 --> 00:15:37.100 align:middle line:84% But numb with winter, he came back to sit-in 00:15:37.100 --> 00:15:39.920 align:middle line:90% the widening circle of story. 00:15:39.920 --> 00:15:45.350 align:middle line:84% A man lay by a northern stream, lost in trout depths, feverish, 00:15:45.350 --> 00:15:48.350 align:middle line:90% his gashed leg refused to heal. 00:15:48.350 --> 00:15:52.670 align:middle line:84% That night, the wolf returned to snarl. 00:15:52.670 --> 00:15:55.070 align:middle line:84% Sunday, when the others knelt in church, 00:15:55.070 --> 00:15:59.120 align:middle line:84% he pressed the blue fire of palm and bound their hands 00:15:59.120 --> 00:16:00.770 align:middle line:90% in prayer. 00:16:00.770 --> 00:16:03.680 align:middle line:90% He passed out in the snow. 00:16:03.680 --> 00:16:06.920 align:middle line:84% The tree let down its branches over a boy 00:16:06.920 --> 00:16:11.570 align:middle line:84% who could not stay away from the dead or the soon to be dead. 00:16:11.570 --> 00:16:15.260 align:middle line:84% And an owl from a storybook sang of another world, 00:16:15.260 --> 00:16:17.300 align:middle line:90% the underground. 00:16:17.300 --> 00:16:19.490 align:middle line:84% It snowed, and the stream froze up. 00:16:19.490 --> 00:16:22.640 align:middle line:90% And dark clouds hid the stars. 00:16:22.640 --> 00:16:26.510 align:middle line:84% In his dream, they were friends, wolf and man, 00:16:26.510 --> 00:16:29.990 align:middle line:90% under a shell of dark. 00:16:29.990 --> 00:16:34.700 align:middle line:84% Far off in the upper world, the miraculous living moved. 00:16:34.700 --> 00:16:37.460 align:middle line:90% Nothing ended but the day. 00:16:37.460 --> 00:16:40.430 align:middle line:84% A father storied his son to sleep. 00:16:40.430 --> 00:16:43.730 align:middle line:84% Children woke and went to school. 00:16:43.730 --> 00:16:46.730 align:middle line:84% The boy moved through them, a ghost, 00:16:46.730 --> 00:16:50.420 align:middle line:84% counting the unborn nails of his hand. 00:16:50.420 --> 00:16:54.410 align:middle line:84% Cold voices urged him back to the woods. 00:16:54.410 --> 00:16:57.530 align:middle line:84% Under the tree, a story was ending. 00:16:57.530 --> 00:17:00.800 align:middle line:84% And when he died, steam rose from his flesh. 00:17:00.800 --> 00:17:03.320 align:middle line:90% And the wolf moaned and ran. 00:17:03.320 --> 00:17:07.190 align:middle line:90% The body slipped under snow. 00:17:07.190 --> 00:17:10.490 align:middle line:84% Then spring, and the snow loosed over rock 00:17:10.490 --> 00:17:13.400 align:middle line:90% to unveil a man's body. 00:17:13.400 --> 00:17:15.650 align:middle line:84% He watched them wrap it in a sack 00:17:15.650 --> 00:17:18.230 align:middle line:84% and saw that the eyes were blind, 00:17:18.230 --> 00:17:22.760 align:middle line:84% the mouth too dumb for grief or story. 00:17:22.760 --> 00:17:27.319 align:middle line:84% But their hands had locked, friends one whole winter, 00:17:27.319 --> 00:17:29.960 align:middle line:84% until the stream broke and blessed him 00:17:29.960 --> 00:17:32.510 align:middle line:90% with its cold skill. 00:17:32.510 --> 00:17:36.380 align:middle line:84% He heard icy veins roaring underground. 00:17:36.380 --> 00:17:39.260 align:middle line:84% He didn't know the dad could live so long, 00:17:39.260 --> 00:17:41.495 align:middle line:90% nor pain nor numbness end. 00:17:41.495 --> 00:17:58.800 align:middle line:90% 00:17:58.800 --> 00:18:03.210 align:middle line:84% Next poem is called There Was a Storm. 00:18:03.210 --> 00:18:07.820 align:middle line:84% It's in part an elegy for my uncle who died in 1978. 00:18:07.820 --> 00:18:11.190 align:middle line:90% [CLEARS THROAT] Excuse me. 00:18:11.190 --> 00:18:15.000 align:middle line:84% And he died during that big snowstorm they had back east, 00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:17.970 align:middle line:84% though he didn't die because of that. 00:18:17.970 --> 00:18:19.380 align:middle line:90% But that enters into the poem. 00:18:19.380 --> 00:18:23.950 align:middle line:90% 00:18:23.950 --> 00:18:29.450 align:middle line:84% There was a storm so hard I can only imperfectly imagine it. 00:18:29.450 --> 00:18:32.680 align:middle line:84% But my mother on the telephone loses her grief 00:18:32.680 --> 00:18:36.430 align:middle line:84% for a moment to say how the houses by the shore 00:18:36.430 --> 00:18:41.650 align:middle line:84% lost resistance, how the snow was colorless and empty, 00:18:41.650 --> 00:18:44.740 align:middle line:90% fluid as running water. 00:18:44.740 --> 00:18:47.620 align:middle line:90% She pauses over the wires. 00:18:47.620 --> 00:18:50.650 align:middle line:84% Where your brother lives, she says, the ocean 00:18:50.650 --> 00:18:54.100 align:middle line:84% ran right up his street and took a house away. 00:18:54.100 --> 00:18:56.950 align:middle line:90% And our uncle Bunny died. 00:18:56.950 --> 00:19:01.210 align:middle line:84% My mother breaks down, comparing and choosing, 00:19:01.210 --> 00:19:05.860 align:middle line:84% then lost in the thousand pretexts of words. 00:19:05.860 --> 00:19:11.170 align:middle line:84% Uncle Bunny, who would not be touched by anything but snow. 00:19:11.170 --> 00:19:15.550 align:middle line:84% He died a fat man of a heart attack and far inland, 00:19:15.550 --> 00:19:18.220 align:middle line:90% not even shoveling snow. 00:19:18.220 --> 00:19:22.390 align:middle line:84% And now snow, by chance, covers him. 00:19:22.390 --> 00:19:25.870 align:middle line:84% He was a fat man a long time and would not 00:19:25.870 --> 00:19:30.100 align:middle line:84% allow a hand to touch, not even to shake his hand, 00:19:30.100 --> 00:19:33.640 align:middle line:90% his giant, overworked heart. 00:19:33.640 --> 00:19:36.460 align:middle line:90% My mother lost her words. 00:19:36.460 --> 00:19:40.390 align:middle line:84% It was quiet, a family-expected death. 00:19:40.390 --> 00:19:43.420 align:middle line:84% And little sentiment around for a bachelor 00:19:43.420 --> 00:19:45.370 align:middle line:90% who would not be touched. 00:19:45.370 --> 00:19:49.090 align:middle line:84% For a moment, my mother did, then let him go. 00:19:49.090 --> 00:20:12.430 align:middle line:90% 00:20:12.430 --> 00:20:14.650 align:middle line:84% Next poem is called Big Friend of the Stones. 00:20:14.650 --> 00:20:22.720 align:middle line:84% And the speaker in the poem is a young boy, a young farm boy. 00:20:22.720 --> 00:20:26.530 align:middle line:84% It comes from a section of this new manuscript that's 00:20:26.530 --> 00:20:30.610 align:middle line:84% mostly poems about characters or persona poems. 00:20:30.610 --> 00:20:33.340 align:middle line:84% There's a little epigraph that is really lovely 00:20:33.340 --> 00:20:38.680 align:middle line:84% that I got from a book that Raleigh Kent put together, 00:20:38.680 --> 00:20:42.190 align:middle line:84% spoken poems by children around the southwest. 00:20:42.190 --> 00:20:45.220 align:middle line:84% I just thought I'd read you this lovely little epigraph. 00:20:45.220 --> 00:20:48.130 align:middle line:84% Going through a ghost, it gets cold. 00:20:48.130 --> 00:20:49.660 align:middle line:90% You get scared. 00:20:49.660 --> 00:20:52.630 align:middle line:84% It picks up something like a knife or sword. 00:20:52.630 --> 00:20:54.580 align:middle line:90% It tries to stab you. 00:20:54.580 --> 00:20:58.612 align:middle line:84% But sometimes it tells you a story. 00:20:58.612 --> 00:21:01.660 align:middle line:90% I like that. 00:21:01.660 --> 00:21:03.497 align:middle line:90% Big Friend of the Stones. 00:21:03.497 --> 00:21:06.240 align:middle line:90% 00:21:06.240 --> 00:21:08.640 align:middle line:84% The donkey doctor came covered with rain 00:21:08.640 --> 00:21:13.320 align:middle line:84% and a gift, a picture of Jesus that changed when you looked. 00:21:13.320 --> 00:21:16.080 align:middle line:90% His head seemed to wag. 00:21:16.080 --> 00:21:20.550 align:middle line:84% My father is a good man with a pine cone for his head. 00:21:20.550 --> 00:21:26.340 align:middle line:84% All summer, he chops firewood when the air is hot, not cold. 00:21:26.340 --> 00:21:28.620 align:middle line:84% I've watched him from the rubbish pit where 00:21:28.620 --> 00:21:31.140 align:middle line:90% I was playing with a snail. 00:21:31.140 --> 00:21:35.970 align:middle line:84% My father says I will become the guardian of all God's motions, 00:21:35.970 --> 00:21:40.920 align:middle line:84% wind and sun and rain, the goat after the grapes, 00:21:40.920 --> 00:21:46.350 align:middle line:84% the grapes, the bees spinning the useful honey. 00:21:46.350 --> 00:21:49.540 align:middle line:90% But I could not save the donkey. 00:21:49.540 --> 00:21:52.770 align:middle line:84% The day the donkey died, a strange white peace 00:21:52.770 --> 00:21:56.460 align:middle line:84% came over our land, like the doctor's white hand 00:21:56.460 --> 00:21:59.220 align:middle line:90% into his vest pocket. 00:21:59.220 --> 00:22:02.310 align:middle line:84% My father said the donkey was a friendly old man 00:22:02.310 --> 00:22:05.220 align:middle line:84% because he carried his burden over the hills 00:22:05.220 --> 00:22:10.230 align:middle line:84% with the flies in his ears and the dogs at his legs. 00:22:10.230 --> 00:22:12.600 align:middle line:84% The donkey doctor yawned and muttered. 00:22:12.600 --> 00:22:16.440 align:middle line:84% And we took the graying carcass out though it was tired 00:22:16.440 --> 00:22:19.080 align:middle line:90% and could not obey. 00:22:19.080 --> 00:22:23.610 align:middle line:84% Please me, I prayed, big friend of the stones. 00:22:23.610 --> 00:22:26.490 align:middle line:84% We dragged him down the hill and buried him 00:22:26.490 --> 00:22:29.730 align:middle line:90% beside the poplar tree. 00:22:29.730 --> 00:22:33.780 align:middle line:84% When they left, I knelt and dug a channel to the great head 00:22:33.780 --> 00:22:36.120 align:middle line:90% and stroked his muzzle. 00:22:36.120 --> 00:22:39.870 align:middle line:84% I spoke a little poem I made up in a dream. 00:22:39.870 --> 00:22:41.430 align:middle line:90% It was cold. 00:22:41.430 --> 00:22:43.410 align:middle line:90% A leaf fell on my head. 00:22:43.410 --> 00:22:45.420 align:middle line:90% I sneezed. 00:22:45.420 --> 00:22:48.000 align:middle line:84% I pushed the dirt back over him and thought, 00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:51.180 align:middle line:84% go to heaven where you belong, and get yourself 00:22:51.180 --> 00:22:54.750 align:middle line:90% cured, old favorite of Christ. 00:22:54.750 --> 00:22:58.140 align:middle line:84% Behind me, it was snowing on the stream. 00:22:58.140 --> 00:23:02.190 align:middle line:84% Up the hill, I saw my father and the donkey doctor swigging 00:23:02.190 --> 00:23:04.290 align:middle line:90% whiskey from the jug. 00:23:04.290 --> 00:23:06.810 align:middle line:90% The door to our house was open. 00:23:06.810 --> 00:23:09.330 align:middle line:90% The dog slept on the hearth. 00:23:09.330 --> 00:23:10.740 align:middle line:90% I sneezed again. 00:23:10.740 --> 00:23:11.670 align:middle line:90% And it was winter. 00:23:11.670 --> 00:23:24.700 align:middle line:90% 00:23:24.700 --> 00:23:25.845 align:middle line:90% Tea break here. 00:23:25.845 --> 00:23:34.565 align:middle line:90% 00:23:34.565 --> 00:23:36.440 align:middle line:84% Someone said if you don't remember the poems, 00:23:36.440 --> 00:23:37.760 align:middle line:90% you remember the shirt. 00:23:37.760 --> 00:23:39.140 align:middle line:90% I've got my best shirt on. 00:23:39.140 --> 00:23:41.068 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:23:41.068 --> 00:23:42.757 align:middle line:90% 00:23:42.757 --> 00:23:45.340 align:middle line:84% This one's called The Great Wall of China for Michael Collier. 00:23:45.340 --> 00:23:48.688 align:middle line:90% 00:23:48.688 --> 00:23:50.230 align:middle line:84% My friend tells me that he's not sure 00:23:50.230 --> 00:23:52.188 align:middle line:84% whether this is a serious poem or a funny poem. 00:23:52.188 --> 00:23:54.940 align:middle line:90% 00:23:54.940 --> 00:23:59.380 align:middle line:84% It brings together the Great Wall of China and the English 00:23:59.380 --> 00:24:01.480 align:middle line:90% philosopher Wittgenstein. 00:24:01.480 --> 00:24:07.030 align:middle line:84% We'll see whether it's funny or serious. 00:24:07.030 --> 00:24:10.840 align:middle line:84% Wittgenstein says that when a man wakes, he deliberates. 00:24:10.840 --> 00:24:13.180 align:middle line:90% Is it time to get up? 00:24:13.180 --> 00:24:15.970 align:middle line:84% He tries to make up his mind then finds 00:24:15.970 --> 00:24:18.700 align:middle line:90% himself rising from the sheets. 00:24:18.700 --> 00:24:21.460 align:middle line:84% But this other man, a mason whose family 00:24:21.460 --> 00:24:24.310 align:middle line:84% had worked in brick and mud for generations 00:24:24.310 --> 00:24:28.300 align:middle line:84% and who works on the Great Wall, couldn't get out of bed. 00:24:28.300 --> 00:24:32.380 align:middle line:84% And there was no Wittgenstein to help him describe it. 00:24:32.380 --> 00:24:35.830 align:middle line:84% He saw his wife, whose legs, showing under the curtain, 00:24:35.830 --> 00:24:39.670 align:middle line:84% were the legs of a little girl, scuffed and dirty from falls 00:24:39.670 --> 00:24:41.020 align:middle line:90% in the gravel. 00:24:41.020 --> 00:24:43.180 align:middle line:90% She was making tea. 00:24:43.180 --> 00:24:45.790 align:middle line:84% He knew what sat at the top of those legs. 00:24:45.790 --> 00:24:50.200 align:middle line:84% Could he get up this morning or even call her over? 00:24:50.200 --> 00:24:52.000 align:middle line:90% Nature is pitiless. 00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:53.950 align:middle line:84% Wittgenstein would have said, were he 00:24:53.950 --> 00:24:56.890 align:middle line:84% there in ancient China by the bedside, 00:24:56.890 --> 00:25:00.220 align:middle line:84% that the mason did not rise because paradox 00:25:00.220 --> 00:25:02.860 align:middle line:84% implies a radical loss of speech, 00:25:02.860 --> 00:25:06.250 align:middle line:90% would have said perhaps. 00:25:06.250 --> 00:25:09.820 align:middle line:84% Here is a group of men building their several meager yards 00:25:09.820 --> 00:25:13.480 align:middle line:84% of a madman's wall then walking home. 00:25:13.480 --> 00:25:15.730 align:middle line:84% What a small part of a life a wall 00:25:15.730 --> 00:25:21.760 align:middle line:84% is, though sturdy and mud baked, too high even to see over. 00:25:21.760 --> 00:25:24.070 align:middle line:90% The mason calls for his tea. 00:25:24.070 --> 00:25:27.610 align:middle line:84% He calls for the infinite to help him out of bed. 00:25:27.610 --> 00:25:31.750 align:middle line:84% His wife yells, why are you screwing up your face? 00:25:31.750 --> 00:25:34.120 align:middle line:84% Ludwig would have answered, imagine 00:25:34.120 --> 00:25:40.180 align:middle line:84% a tribe in whose language fall down means rise up. 00:25:40.180 --> 00:25:43.540 align:middle line:84% The Great Wall of China, only now being built, 00:25:43.540 --> 00:25:47.710 align:middle line:84% will be a long road from castle to castle, will be partial 00:25:47.710 --> 00:25:49.090 align:middle line:90% and twisting. 00:25:49.090 --> 00:25:53.950 align:middle line:84% And each man will be proud and one day say, I built it. 00:25:53.950 --> 00:25:56.260 align:middle line:84% Even this poor mason and his child 00:25:56.260 --> 00:25:59.800 align:middle line:84% will be thrilled and, along the irrigation ditch, 00:25:59.800 --> 00:26:02.980 align:middle line:84% construct their own wall for the ants to climb, 00:26:02.980 --> 00:26:06.340 align:middle line:84% for the rain to hurry beside toward the other Great 00:26:06.340 --> 00:26:10.360 align:middle line:84% Wall of China, about which Ludwig Wittgenstein would have 00:26:10.360 --> 00:26:14.200 align:middle line:84% said years later in England in a room in Cambridge 00:26:14.200 --> 00:26:17.200 align:middle line:84% under a rookery early in the morning, well, 00:26:17.200 --> 00:26:18.340 align:middle line:90% what did you see? 00:26:18.340 --> 00:26:20.800 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:26:20.800 --> 00:26:33.110 align:middle line:90% 00:26:33.110 --> 00:26:35.330 align:middle line:84% Every once in a while, poets seemed 00:26:35.330 --> 00:26:38.570 align:middle line:84% to write poems that are extremely direct 00:26:38.570 --> 00:26:41.990 align:middle line:84% and basically addressed to somebody. 00:26:41.990 --> 00:26:45.950 align:middle line:84% This next poem is addressed to my father. 00:26:45.950 --> 00:26:52.143 align:middle line:84% And it is very direct and, in a sense, an uncomfortable poem. 00:26:52.143 --> 00:26:53.810 align:middle line:84% And I had the weird experience of having 00:26:53.810 --> 00:26:58.655 align:middle line:84% to read it at a college in New England 00:26:58.655 --> 00:27:00.530 align:middle line:84% last year when my father was in the audience. 00:27:00.530 --> 00:27:02.480 align:middle line:90% It was very strange. 00:27:02.480 --> 00:27:04.170 align:middle line:84% It's a kind of confrontational poem. 00:27:04.170 --> 00:27:07.170 align:middle line:84% It was almost a confrontation with my father. 00:27:07.170 --> 00:27:14.000 align:middle line:84% Anyways, it's called March 15, 1979. 00:27:14.000 --> 00:27:17.870 align:middle line:84% That which I should have done I did not do. 00:27:17.870 --> 00:27:22.070 align:middle line:84% Here on the porch, the beginning of spring or end of winter 00:27:22.070 --> 00:27:24.950 align:middle line:90% reflects off the screen. 00:27:24.950 --> 00:27:29.690 align:middle line:84% I stare at you, who now can barely see even the light that 00:27:29.690 --> 00:27:32.690 align:middle line:90% sparks the tunnels of dust. 00:27:32.690 --> 00:27:36.620 align:middle line:84% You are blind, prideful, and sentimental 00:27:36.620 --> 00:27:40.220 align:middle line:84% as the dust settles on your shoulder. 00:27:40.220 --> 00:27:43.550 align:middle line:84% I used to think blindness made a person solitary 00:27:43.550 --> 00:27:46.100 align:middle line:90% and close to God. 00:27:46.100 --> 00:27:49.760 align:middle line:84% I watch you shrink from what you cannot see, 00:27:49.760 --> 00:27:52.430 align:middle line:84% which should make me scared of age, 00:27:52.430 --> 00:27:56.660 align:middle line:84% but there's a beauty to it beyond your resignation. 00:27:56.660 --> 00:28:01.670 align:middle line:84% You lay your hand in shadow on the table between us. 00:28:01.670 --> 00:28:05.900 align:middle line:84% And this, our annual visit, we will talk to each other, 00:28:05.900 --> 00:28:10.520 align:middle line:84% I to tell you what I've done, and you to comment on it. 00:28:10.520 --> 00:28:15.020 align:middle line:84% There are no children to distract us from our purpose. 00:28:15.020 --> 00:28:19.400 align:middle line:84% At 37, you'd already had two sons. 00:28:19.400 --> 00:28:24.260 align:middle line:84% I think you wanted none, knowing in that small well of wisdom 00:28:24.260 --> 00:28:29.390 align:middle line:84% we deny that you had no patience, only the kind of love 00:28:29.390 --> 00:28:33.860 align:middle line:84% that flickers in this common light, a source of pride 00:28:33.860 --> 00:28:35.820 align:middle line:90% and sorrow. 00:28:35.820 --> 00:28:40.460 align:middle line:84% It's a letter you wrote years ago and could not finish. 00:28:40.460 --> 00:28:42.830 align:middle line:90% Your words got away. 00:28:42.830 --> 00:28:47.840 align:middle line:84% Your wish was small and serious, that I become, like you, 00:28:47.840 --> 00:28:50.090 align:middle line:90% a man of business. 00:28:50.090 --> 00:28:52.700 align:middle line:84% The small talent you had for where 00:28:52.700 --> 00:28:55.970 align:middle line:84% words come from, where they go has 00:28:55.970 --> 00:28:59.840 align:middle line:90% enlarged in me, my livelihood. 00:28:59.840 --> 00:29:04.130 align:middle line:84% That which I should have done I could not do. 00:29:04.130 --> 00:29:09.860 align:middle line:84% I rose each morning, slack, ingenuous, unreasoning. 00:29:09.860 --> 00:29:14.870 align:middle line:84% I meant to bloom for you, tender to all living things. 00:29:14.870 --> 00:29:18.860 align:middle line:90% I forget each morning to resume. 00:29:18.860 --> 00:29:23.030 align:middle line:84% That which I felt to be simple, to go out among men 00:29:23.030 --> 00:29:27.170 align:middle line:84% and to return a man, solitary, to my room, 00:29:27.170 --> 00:29:30.050 align:middle line:90% turned out to be complicated. 00:29:30.050 --> 00:29:34.490 align:middle line:84% Childless, without theories or fortunes to offer, 00:29:34.490 --> 00:29:36.680 align:middle line:90% I offer some words. 00:29:36.680 --> 00:29:41.630 align:middle line:84% I'd like to offer myself to pester your sleeve. 00:29:41.630 --> 00:29:44.300 align:middle line:90% I play with my fork and knife. 00:29:44.300 --> 00:29:46.250 align:middle line:90% I slice an apple for us. 00:29:46.250 --> 00:29:59.820 align:middle line:90% 00:29:59.820 --> 00:30:02.730 align:middle line:84% Next poem is the title poem from my last book. 00:30:02.730 --> 00:30:06.240 align:middle line:90% 00:30:06.240 --> 00:30:11.760 align:middle line:84% And you should know the speaker is sitting in an upstairs 00:30:11.760 --> 00:30:13.170 align:middle line:90% window looking out. 00:30:13.170 --> 00:30:15.880 align:middle line:84% And there's been a spring snow the night before, 00:30:15.880 --> 00:30:19.080 align:middle line:84% which is always a very strange circumstance. 00:30:19.080 --> 00:30:22.560 align:middle line:90% 00:30:22.560 --> 00:30:26.130 align:middle line:90% Permission to Speak. 00:30:26.130 --> 00:30:29.100 align:middle line:84% Mornings from my upstairs window. 00:30:29.100 --> 00:30:32.820 align:middle line:84% I can see a gray stand of birch and further down, 00:30:32.820 --> 00:30:37.020 align:middle line:84% a hickory grove, then the river that powers the mill that 00:30:37.020 --> 00:30:39.150 align:middle line:90% grinds flour. 00:30:39.150 --> 00:30:42.420 align:middle line:90% Later, I'll eat the bread. 00:30:42.420 --> 00:30:45.990 align:middle line:84% Last night, a spring snow blurred the countryside. 00:30:45.990 --> 00:30:49.440 align:middle line:90% And for a while, I lost my way. 00:30:49.440 --> 00:30:53.190 align:middle line:84% I thought I saw a boy in a crimson bathing suit whirl 00:30:53.190 --> 00:30:56.400 align:middle line:90% downstream on an innertube. 00:30:56.400 --> 00:31:01.440 align:middle line:84% So I closed my eyes on the old words for birch and hickory 00:31:01.440 --> 00:31:05.160 align:middle line:84% and snow, like a novice in his cell, 00:31:05.160 --> 00:31:09.930 align:middle line:84% discovering light, not that one but another 00:31:09.930 --> 00:31:14.220 align:middle line:84% about which he'll remain silent all his life. 00:31:14.220 --> 00:31:17.790 align:middle line:90% I came to myself at the window. 00:31:17.790 --> 00:31:21.240 align:middle line:84% That boy, already seen in memory, 00:31:21.240 --> 00:31:24.130 align:middle line:90% gives me permission to speak. 00:31:24.130 --> 00:31:28.210 align:middle line:84% After a spring snow, a father and son took a sleigh ride 00:31:28.210 --> 00:31:30.190 align:middle line:90% along the riverbank. 00:31:30.190 --> 00:31:34.810 align:middle line:84% And what the sun couldn't see, the particular hills and trees 00:31:34.810 --> 00:31:38.890 align:middle line:90% lost to whiteness made him cry. 00:31:38.890 --> 00:31:41.530 align:middle line:84% The father snapped the reins and pointed 00:31:41.530 --> 00:31:45.610 align:middle line:84% at what must have been a red fox sliding past a birch. 00:31:45.610 --> 00:31:49.120 align:middle line:84% Look at that fellow in the bright nightgown 00:31:49.120 --> 00:31:53.650 align:middle line:84% from which the sun will date his love of the world traveling 00:31:53.650 --> 00:31:54.535 align:middle line:90% swiftly past. 00:31:54.535 --> 00:32:07.220 align:middle line:90% 00:32:07.220 --> 00:32:17.180 align:middle line:84% Another poem from the same book called In Praise of Beverly. 00:32:17.180 --> 00:32:18.950 align:middle line:84% The only thing you might need to know 00:32:18.950 --> 00:32:22.820 align:middle line:84% is that back in Massachusetts in the '40s and '50s, 00:32:22.820 --> 00:32:25.790 align:middle line:84% they had these places called Houses of Good Shepherd, which 00:32:25.790 --> 00:32:29.240 align:middle line:90% were reform schools for girls. 00:32:29.240 --> 00:32:33.430 align:middle line:90% 00:32:33.430 --> 00:32:36.760 align:middle line:84% When you walk downstairs and touched my route, 00:32:36.760 --> 00:32:39.820 align:middle line:84% God knows what brought you homing there, 00:32:39.820 --> 00:32:44.830 align:middle line:84% barely 14, already known as the town pump, and proud 00:32:44.830 --> 00:32:47.680 align:middle line:90% of your clear attributes. 00:32:47.680 --> 00:32:53.500 align:middle line:84% With breasts like new clouds, you were my first fallen angel. 00:32:53.500 --> 00:32:56.230 align:middle line:84% I don't think we ever kissed but lay 00:32:56.230 --> 00:32:58.930 align:middle line:84% in a rocky ditch all one awful summer 00:32:58.930 --> 00:33:02.950 align:middle line:90% night, alive, in love with heat. 00:33:02.950 --> 00:33:05.470 align:middle line:84% At dawn, we toasted marshmallows. 00:33:05.470 --> 00:33:09.310 align:middle line:84% And when the fire caught the weeds and lit the hillside, 00:33:09.310 --> 00:33:12.640 align:middle line:84% you held me tight and whispered, let's wait 00:33:12.640 --> 00:33:16.780 align:middle line:90% and see the fire engines come. 00:33:16.780 --> 00:33:20.050 align:middle line:84% You got sent up early to the House of Good Shepherd 00:33:20.050 --> 00:33:22.180 align:middle line:84% because the mothers were jealous. 00:33:22.180 --> 00:33:24.010 align:middle line:90% Forgive them. 00:33:24.010 --> 00:33:26.740 align:middle line:84% When the friendly, leering cop told me, 00:33:26.740 --> 00:33:29.740 align:middle line:84% I heard you dipped the wick in Beverly, 00:33:29.740 --> 00:33:34.930 align:middle line:84% I blushed and stammered, proud, then lied, forgive us all, 00:33:34.930 --> 00:33:37.660 align:middle line:90% to save my skin. 00:33:37.660 --> 00:33:41.830 align:middle line:84% Beverly, the night they took you away, I imagined myself 00:33:41.830 --> 00:33:45.280 align:middle line:84% in the ditch, my flesh on fire, curled 00:33:45.280 --> 00:33:49.270 align:middle line:84% against your careless breathing, plodding low. 00:33:49.270 --> 00:33:51.520 align:middle line:84% I dreamt your face and your hands 00:33:51.520 --> 00:33:55.270 align:middle line:84% that parted the dark were mine and groaned 00:33:55.270 --> 00:33:57.520 align:middle line:90% to share your misery. 00:33:57.520 --> 00:33:59.650 align:middle line:90% But I found mine in good time. 00:33:59.650 --> 00:34:22.750 align:middle line:90% 00:34:22.750 --> 00:34:23.739 align:middle line:90% Next poem is called-- 00:34:23.739 --> 00:34:26.440 align:middle line:84% [CLEARS THROAT] That's not what it's called. 00:34:26.440 --> 00:34:28.900 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:34:28.900 --> 00:34:30.368 align:middle line:90% [CLEARS THROAT] 00:34:30.368 --> 00:34:30.868 align:middle line:90% 00:34:30.868 --> 00:34:32.199 align:middle line:90% Got to do that again. 00:34:32.199 --> 00:34:34.624 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:34:34.624 --> 00:34:37.540 align:middle line:90% 00:34:37.540 --> 00:34:39.775 align:middle line:84% The next poem is called Love and Memory. 00:34:39.775 --> 00:34:43.960 align:middle line:90% 00:34:43.960 --> 00:34:47.380 align:middle line:84% In those days, the sky hung like a cobweb 00:34:47.380 --> 00:34:50.380 align:middle line:90% in the great garden of space. 00:34:50.380 --> 00:34:53.860 align:middle line:84% There were faces in water, as though the river were 00:34:53.860 --> 00:34:57.370 align:middle line:90% trying on its own to evolve. 00:34:57.370 --> 00:35:01.360 align:middle line:84% Now, after years of telling each other apart, 00:35:01.360 --> 00:35:07.150 align:middle line:84% love is not born spontaneously but is realized in the brain 00:35:07.150 --> 00:35:11.950 align:middle line:84% or in the arms, almost mathematically. 00:35:11.950 --> 00:35:13.870 align:middle line:84% There are words that lose courage 00:35:13.870 --> 00:35:18.460 align:middle line:84% when you speak them, even in the darkest room of the house, 00:35:18.460 --> 00:35:21.790 align:middle line:84% to a wife who waits for a single face 00:35:21.790 --> 00:35:25.750 align:middle line:84% to emerge from collective rhythms. 00:35:25.750 --> 00:35:28.720 align:middle line:84% Who can argue with marriage, you believe? 00:35:28.720 --> 00:35:32.560 align:middle line:84% For marriage is a long novel of associations. 00:35:32.560 --> 00:35:36.940 align:middle line:84% Specks of gold swept by and a long river. 00:35:36.940 --> 00:35:39.700 align:middle line:90% Where it leads is to memory. 00:35:39.700 --> 00:35:44.050 align:middle line:84% The odor of lemon trees after a storm and the way blood 00:35:44.050 --> 00:35:47.260 align:middle line:84% clots around a cut lead you further back 00:35:47.260 --> 00:35:49.720 align:middle line:84% to those days in the mountains, where 00:35:49.720 --> 00:35:55.030 align:middle line:84% air was so transparent you both consulted stars. 00:35:55.030 --> 00:36:00.460 align:middle line:84% But memories in bed in the dark are fictitious characters 00:36:00.460 --> 00:36:05.740 align:middle line:84% and a common past does not mean memories in common. 00:36:05.740 --> 00:36:08.350 align:middle line:90% Everyone tells lies in bed. 00:36:08.350 --> 00:36:12.490 align:middle line:84% And you are almost certain you have met this woman before 00:36:12.490 --> 00:36:14.080 align:middle line:90% or this is a dream. 00:36:14.080 --> 00:36:17.800 align:middle line:84% And into the Earth, crushed flowers have been pressed. 00:36:17.800 --> 00:36:20.620 align:middle line:84% And you walk out on them as though you 00:36:20.620 --> 00:36:23.620 align:middle line:90% were resuming an old habit. 00:36:23.620 --> 00:36:27.040 align:middle line:84% A memory passes over you, odor of lemons 00:36:27.040 --> 00:36:33.040 align:middle line:84% in a bath, pearly skin, the dark, dark hair, a memory 00:36:33.040 --> 00:36:35.245 align:middle line:90% of what world, what life? 00:36:35.245 --> 00:36:47.400 align:middle line:90% 00:36:47.400 --> 00:36:48.990 align:middle line:84% The next poem is about my grandfather. 00:36:48.990 --> 00:36:53.700 align:middle line:90% It's called Naming the Children. 00:36:53.700 --> 00:36:56.280 align:middle line:84% At one point when my grandfather must have been in his 80s 00:36:56.280 --> 00:36:58.885 align:middle line:84% already, he'd had several strokes and was having trouble. 00:36:58.885 --> 00:37:00.510 align:middle line:84% He was living in a nursing home and was 00:37:00.510 --> 00:37:03.390 align:middle line:90% having trouble with his memory. 00:37:03.390 --> 00:37:05.802 align:middle line:84% And my wife and I went to pick him up. 00:37:05.802 --> 00:37:06.760 align:middle line:90% My wife's name is Gail. 00:37:06.760 --> 00:37:08.760 align:middle line:90% That figures in the poem. 00:37:08.760 --> 00:37:13.080 align:middle line:84% We went to pick him up and bring him to a family party. 00:37:13.080 --> 00:37:17.130 align:middle line:84% And in the drive, he said that every morning when he got up, 00:37:17.130 --> 00:37:22.020 align:middle line:84% he would count to 10 in the three languages 00:37:22.020 --> 00:37:25.050 align:middle line:84% that he knew, Russian, Hebrew, and English, 00:37:25.050 --> 00:37:26.790 align:middle line:84% and then say the names of his children 00:37:26.790 --> 00:37:30.930 align:middle line:84% and his grandchildren in all those languages. 00:37:30.930 --> 00:37:33.320 align:middle line:84% He also got them wrong, but he was trying. 00:37:33.320 --> 00:37:35.938 align:middle line:90% 00:37:35.938 --> 00:37:37.950 align:middle line:84% Anyways, the naming figures in here. 00:37:37.950 --> 00:37:39.840 align:middle line:90% Naming the Children. 00:37:39.840 --> 00:37:44.490 align:middle line:84% He remembers good night and good morning. 00:37:44.490 --> 00:37:46.830 align:middle line:84% He remembers my wife Gail, which is 00:37:46.830 --> 00:37:53.400 align:middle line:84% the wind, who sits beside him, stroking his thin right hand. 00:37:53.400 --> 00:37:56.010 align:middle line:84% From back of the car through the neighborhoods, 00:37:56.010 --> 00:37:58.530 align:middle line:84% he recites the names of his children 00:37:58.530 --> 00:38:01.920 align:middle line:90% in Russian, Hebrew, and English. 00:38:01.920 --> 00:38:05.550 align:middle line:84% The names squeeze through the damaged arteries, 00:38:05.550 --> 00:38:09.810 align:middle line:84% past the house in Odessa, over the remarkable ocean 00:38:09.810 --> 00:38:11.280 align:middle line:90% to New York. 00:38:11.280 --> 00:38:13.530 align:middle line:90% Misha will be Morris. 00:38:13.530 --> 00:38:17.160 align:middle line:90% Khodia will be Ida. 00:38:17.160 --> 00:38:21.210 align:middle line:84% 10 years later, my mother Beatrice Florence, 00:38:21.210 --> 00:38:24.180 align:middle line:90% stares into polished stone. 00:38:24.180 --> 00:38:28.680 align:middle line:84% At last, she sees herself, [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] beautiful 00:38:28.680 --> 00:38:32.340 align:middle line:84% bird, which is how it is in America, 00:38:32.340 --> 00:38:35.460 align:middle line:84% over the graves of our parents, how we are named. 00:38:35.460 --> 00:38:43.930 align:middle line:90% 00:38:43.930 --> 00:38:48.490 align:middle line:84% Another grandparents poem, same couple, actually. 00:38:48.490 --> 00:38:53.770 align:middle line:84% They were born in the Ukraine, one in Odessa and one, 00:38:53.770 --> 00:38:56.110 align:middle line:84% I guess, a few hundred miles outside. 00:38:56.110 --> 00:38:58.870 align:middle line:84% And this poem, the first half of it really, 00:38:58.870 --> 00:39:01.810 align:middle line:84% describes a photograph of them when 00:39:01.810 --> 00:39:05.320 align:middle line:90% I guess they were teenagers. 00:39:05.320 --> 00:39:10.180 align:middle line:84% The second half moves into more contemporary times. 00:39:10.180 --> 00:39:15.220 align:middle line:84% Ukrainian Passed Around from a Photo of my Grandparents. 00:39:15.220 --> 00:39:18.250 align:middle line:84% On a wooded hillside by a river, a woman 00:39:18.250 --> 00:39:23.470 align:middle line:84% pauses to catch her breath, leans against a silver birch. 00:39:23.470 --> 00:39:28.540 align:middle line:84% What she sees, we can't know, for her eyes are shut. 00:39:28.540 --> 00:39:31.240 align:middle line:90% She is stocky, young. 00:39:31.240 --> 00:39:34.300 align:middle line:90% Her calves glisten in sunlight. 00:39:34.300 --> 00:39:37.030 align:middle line:84% When she opens her eyes to admit us, 00:39:37.030 --> 00:39:42.790 align:middle line:84% the Earth is a maypole around which she sweeps a clearing. 00:39:42.790 --> 00:39:45.970 align:middle line:84% Upon the water, a small boat is making its way 00:39:45.970 --> 00:39:51.490 align:middle line:84% toward shore, a man rowing, his muscular shoulders propelling 00:39:51.490 --> 00:39:53.470 align:middle line:90% him through mist. 00:39:53.470 --> 00:39:56.950 align:middle line:84% Perhaps he envisions this shape on the hillside, 00:39:56.950 --> 00:40:00.970 align:middle line:84% who might be a wife or a sweetheart waiting. 00:40:00.970 --> 00:40:03.370 align:middle line:90% But his back is to us. 00:40:03.370 --> 00:40:08.840 align:middle line:84% Perhaps he shuts his eyes to hear the river's pulse. 00:40:08.840 --> 00:40:11.240 align:middle line:84% When I enter the parlor, I think you've 00:40:11.240 --> 00:40:15.830 align:middle line:84% been reading the book on your lap, but your eyes are shut. 00:40:15.830 --> 00:40:17.990 align:middle line:90% I remove my old coat. 00:40:17.990 --> 00:40:21.230 align:middle line:84% I see a parakeet preening in its cage 00:40:21.230 --> 00:40:25.070 align:middle line:84% and a salad of onion and cucumber set on a table 00:40:25.070 --> 00:40:28.010 align:middle line:90% by a vase of yellow iris. 00:40:28.010 --> 00:40:31.760 align:middle line:84% Was it something you heard, my foot on the walk, that 00:40:31.760 --> 00:40:34.730 align:middle line:84% woke you, or does light convert us 00:40:34.730 --> 00:40:38.000 align:middle line:90% into people, husband and wife? 00:40:38.000 --> 00:40:41.330 align:middle line:84% The one reading, the other entering an arch, 00:40:41.330 --> 00:40:44.960 align:middle line:90% as he does each day of his life. 00:40:44.960 --> 00:40:49.820 align:middle line:84% On the wall, a woman partially hidden by trees and a man 00:40:49.820 --> 00:40:52.700 align:middle line:84% gliding over water, about whom we 00:40:52.700 --> 00:40:57.380 align:middle line:84% can invent a story or better, say nothing and wait. 00:40:57.380 --> 00:41:15.750 align:middle line:90% 00:41:15.750 --> 00:41:19.140 align:middle line:84% The next poem, a little different tone, 00:41:19.140 --> 00:41:22.170 align:middle line:90% is called Recompense. 00:41:22.170 --> 00:41:27.540 align:middle line:84% And the speaker in the poem is Pablo Picasso, of all people. 00:41:27.540 --> 00:41:30.973 align:middle line:90% And he's traveling around. 00:41:30.973 --> 00:41:31.890 align:middle line:90% He's dead in the poem. 00:41:31.890 --> 00:41:34.695 align:middle line:84% But he's traveling around Europe. 00:41:34.695 --> 00:41:36.510 align:middle line:84% See, if you get to be a great painter, 00:41:36.510 --> 00:41:39.780 align:middle line:90% you can do that, I guess. 00:41:39.780 --> 00:41:42.630 align:middle line:90% Recompense. 00:41:42.630 --> 00:41:45.120 align:middle line:90% My name is Pablo Picasso. 00:41:45.120 --> 00:41:51.150 align:middle line:84% And my name rhymes in French, in Catalan, even in American. 00:41:51.150 --> 00:41:56.040 align:middle line:84% As I travel, stopping often to call aloud the single word, 00:41:56.040 --> 00:42:00.660 align:middle line:84% lady, I find my ghost is still feared. 00:42:00.660 --> 00:42:04.200 align:middle line:84% I'd like to answer, this was my body. 00:42:04.200 --> 00:42:05.670 align:middle line:90% I give it to you. 00:42:05.670 --> 00:42:09.870 align:middle line:84% And this my art, which is only some plumes trailing 00:42:09.870 --> 00:42:11.310 align:middle line:90% from my hat. 00:42:11.310 --> 00:42:14.490 align:middle line:84% And all you politicos and decadents 00:42:14.490 --> 00:42:17.820 align:middle line:84% can penetrate the visible, which may someday 00:42:17.820 --> 00:42:21.510 align:middle line:90% change to include your face. 00:42:21.510 --> 00:42:23.670 align:middle line:84% From the north for several years, 00:42:23.670 --> 00:42:26.610 align:middle line:84% I traveled through Navarre and Aragon 00:42:26.610 --> 00:42:31.050 align:middle line:84% and what used to be Leon before the soldiers came. 00:42:31.050 --> 00:42:35.700 align:middle line:84% I wanted to find the wound that caused the death of art. 00:42:35.700 --> 00:42:39.300 align:middle line:84% I wanted recompense but good naturedly, 00:42:39.300 --> 00:42:41.880 align:middle line:84% the way the troubadours of Provence 00:42:41.880 --> 00:42:45.210 align:middle line:90% addressed their ladies fair. 00:42:45.210 --> 00:42:48.990 align:middle line:84% In Malaga, where I was born, I found a broken mirror 00:42:48.990 --> 00:42:51.780 align:middle line:84% in a cottage a few feet from the road. 00:42:51.780 --> 00:42:53.520 align:middle line:90% The mirror spoke. 00:42:53.520 --> 00:42:59.100 align:middle line:84% You must be a strong man to travel so far toward a miracle. 00:42:59.100 --> 00:43:02.550 align:middle line:84% I sat drinking with the farmer, a simple man. 00:43:02.550 --> 00:43:04.620 align:middle line:84% And when he fell asleep, I yelled, 00:43:04.620 --> 00:43:10.230 align:middle line:84% my name is Pablo Picasso, and all words rhyme. 00:43:10.230 --> 00:43:14.010 align:middle line:84% In Andalusia, there is a bird called cowbird. 00:43:14.010 --> 00:43:17.670 align:middle line:84% It lays it spotted eggs in the nests of other birds 00:43:17.670 --> 00:43:19.860 align:middle line:90% then disappears. 00:43:19.860 --> 00:43:23.910 align:middle line:84% Look for my art in your nest, little bird. 00:43:23.910 --> 00:43:29.040 align:middle line:84% There was a second surprise, the artist carries no sword. 00:43:29.040 --> 00:43:35.250 align:middle line:84% Walking across a field, I heard his slurred whistle, cowbird. 00:43:35.250 --> 00:43:36.630 align:middle line:90% Now I am gone. 00:43:36.630 --> 00:43:38.730 align:middle line:90% My eyes have full freedom. 00:43:38.730 --> 00:43:43.860 align:middle line:84% And my name, Pablo Picasso, hides in the bunched grass. 00:43:43.860 --> 00:43:46.920 align:middle line:84% Some of the birds are gray and some black. 00:43:46.920 --> 00:43:49.020 align:middle line:90% And some practice suffering. 00:43:49.020 --> 00:43:53.790 align:middle line:84% And some patter their lobed feet on the water's surface. 00:43:53.790 --> 00:43:57.840 align:middle line:84% What's to be done about my sullen disposition, my money, 00:43:57.840 --> 00:44:02.790 align:middle line:84% and my heirs, my houses, and my death, which is what I fear 00:44:02.790 --> 00:44:05.370 align:middle line:90% will attract your attention? 00:44:05.370 --> 00:44:09.410 align:middle line:84% What finally rhymes in rocks and clouds, in fat 00:44:09.410 --> 00:44:13.440 align:middle line:84% and the grain of wood is the life you feared. 00:44:13.440 --> 00:44:16.530 align:middle line:84% And I am dead as you have guessed. 00:44:16.530 --> 00:44:19.890 align:middle line:84% I have become a pest of the great man who 00:44:19.890 --> 00:44:23.220 align:middle line:84% tosses up shapes, who fractures your face 00:44:23.220 --> 00:44:25.890 align:middle line:90% and arms, your thighs. 00:44:25.890 --> 00:44:28.620 align:middle line:84% Who knows what I'll do next, lady? 00:44:28.620 --> 00:44:30.078 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:44:30.078 --> 00:44:32.508 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:44:32.508 --> 00:44:35.892 align:middle line:90% 00:44:35.892 --> 00:44:37.350 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read three more poems. 00:44:37.350 --> 00:44:48.390 align:middle line:90% 00:44:48.390 --> 00:44:50.700 align:middle line:84% This one's called The Drunken Man. 00:44:50.700 --> 00:44:52.860 align:middle line:84% It's really about a fairly common experience. 00:44:52.860 --> 00:44:55.290 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:44:55.290 --> 00:44:57.660 align:middle line:90% I guess, but it's the reverse. 00:44:57.660 --> 00:45:01.110 align:middle line:84% It's about being sober and being with somebody who's very drunk 00:45:01.110 --> 00:45:03.270 align:middle line:90% and that mixture of-- 00:45:03.270 --> 00:45:09.060 align:middle line:84% all the misunderstandings that happen in such circumstances. 00:45:09.060 --> 00:45:12.540 align:middle line:84% There's nothing you can say to a man who drinks. 00:45:12.540 --> 00:45:15.120 align:middle line:84% He rises in the gray mist of morning 00:45:15.120 --> 00:45:17.490 align:middle line:84% and lights his cigarette, knowing 00:45:17.490 --> 00:45:20.730 align:middle line:90% that soon, he'll be elsewhere. 00:45:20.730 --> 00:45:23.910 align:middle line:84% Out in the world, the old men sweep their shops, 00:45:23.910 --> 00:45:26.160 align:middle line:90% and one barber nods. 00:45:26.160 --> 00:45:29.010 align:middle line:84% The full-breasted woman airing her pillows, 00:45:29.010 --> 00:45:31.440 align:middle line:90% she smiles and squints. 00:45:31.440 --> 00:45:35.700 align:middle line:84% And seeing it is only him, she closes the window. 00:45:35.700 --> 00:45:37.420 align:middle line:90% But it doesn't matter. 00:45:37.420 --> 00:45:40.500 align:middle line:84% There's no way of hurting a man who drinks. 00:45:40.500 --> 00:45:42.930 align:middle line:90% His wife floats in his pockets. 00:45:42.930 --> 00:45:45.120 align:middle line:90% His father twists open the cap. 00:45:45.120 --> 00:45:48.630 align:middle line:84% His mother whispers, drink, drink. 00:45:48.630 --> 00:45:51.750 align:middle line:90% He moves on down the street. 00:45:51.750 --> 00:45:55.050 align:middle line:84% There are times when I feel obligated to speak. 00:45:55.050 --> 00:45:57.450 align:middle line:90% I take my hands from my pockets. 00:45:57.450 --> 00:46:00.030 align:middle line:90% I slide my glass away from him. 00:46:00.030 --> 00:46:05.250 align:middle line:84% In earnest, I'll say something, anything, the weather, my son. 00:46:05.250 --> 00:46:08.190 align:middle line:84% And he'll argue at me from someplace I can't 00:46:08.190 --> 00:46:11.790 align:middle line:90% know because I'm not a drunk. 00:46:11.790 --> 00:46:15.960 align:middle line:84% Perhaps when I stagger home, my wife screams to shut up. 00:46:15.960 --> 00:46:17.370 align:middle line:90% Come to bed like a man. 00:46:17.370 --> 00:46:19.840 align:middle line:90% [AUDIO OUT] 00:46:19.840 --> 00:46:34.690 align:middle line:90% 00:46:34.690 --> 00:46:37.810 align:middle line:84% Out in the world, the old men sweep their shops, 00:46:37.810 --> 00:46:40.030 align:middle line:90% and one barber nods. 00:46:40.030 --> 00:46:42.820 align:middle line:84% The full-breasted woman airing her pillows, 00:46:42.820 --> 00:46:45.190 align:middle line:90% she smiles and squints. 00:46:45.190 --> 00:46:49.420 align:middle line:84% And seeing it as only him, she closes the window. 00:46:49.420 --> 00:46:51.050 align:middle line:90% But it doesn't matter. 00:46:51.050 --> 00:46:54.130 align:middle line:84% There's no way of hurting a man who drinks. 00:46:54.130 --> 00:46:56.470 align:middle line:90% His wife floats in his pockets. 00:46:56.470 --> 00:46:58.630 align:middle line:90% His father twists open the cap. 00:46:58.630 --> 00:47:02.050 align:middle line:84% His mother whispers, drink, drink. 00:47:02.050 --> 00:47:05.050 align:middle line:90% He moves on down the street. 00:47:05.050 --> 00:47:08.320 align:middle line:84% There are times when I feel obligated to speak. 00:47:08.320 --> 00:47:10.630 align:middle line:90% I take my hands from my pockets. 00:47:10.630 --> 00:47:13.150 align:middle line:90% I slide my glass away from him. 00:47:13.150 --> 00:47:18.250 align:middle line:84% In earnest, I'll say something, anything, the weather, my son. 00:47:18.250 --> 00:47:21.760 align:middle line:84% And he'll argue at me from someplace I can't know, 00:47:21.760 --> 00:47:24.610 align:middle line:90% because I'm not a drunk. 00:47:24.610 --> 00:47:27.100 align:middle line:84% Perhaps when I stagger home, my wife 00:47:27.100 --> 00:47:30.910 align:middle line:84% screams to shut up, come to bed like a man. 00:47:30.910 --> 00:47:32.380 align:middle line:90% My face reddens. 00:47:32.380 --> 00:47:34.330 align:middle line:90% My shoes drop. 00:47:34.330 --> 00:47:37.210 align:middle line:90% I burrow into her flesh. 00:47:37.210 --> 00:47:40.540 align:middle line:84% But a drunk is like a cloud, is like a ship that 00:47:40.540 --> 00:47:44.930 align:middle line:84% sinks but never drowns, is like a feather bed. 00:47:44.930 --> 00:47:46.840 align:middle line:90% Already it is noon. 00:47:46.840 --> 00:47:50.050 align:middle line:84% His mother and his father are half-gone. 00:47:50.050 --> 00:47:52.270 align:middle line:90% He's weightless now. 00:47:52.270 --> 00:47:55.510 align:middle line:84% I shouldn't waste pity on a drunken man. 00:47:55.510 --> 00:47:59.440 align:middle line:84% At night in the bar, I am his weakness, his hope, 00:47:59.440 --> 00:48:01.180 align:middle line:90% and his family. 00:48:01.180 --> 00:48:04.210 align:middle line:84% If I argue back, if I arm wrestle him, 00:48:04.210 --> 00:48:07.690 align:middle line:84% if the bartender is embarrassed by my antics, 00:48:07.690 --> 00:48:13.840 align:middle line:84% it's time to go home, go home, go home to my noisy wife. 00:48:13.840 --> 00:48:16.128 align:middle line:84% I made it up my wife is not noisy at all. 00:48:16.128 --> 00:48:18.618 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:48:18.618 --> 00:48:33.590 align:middle line:90% 00:48:33.590 --> 00:48:36.170 align:middle line:84% Next poem is called All That We Try to Do. 00:48:36.170 --> 00:48:40.790 align:middle line:84% And it's the title poem for this manuscript. 00:48:40.790 --> 00:48:44.970 align:middle line:84% The situation is the speaker is sitting on the second story-- 00:48:44.970 --> 00:48:46.790 align:middle line:90% another second story poem-- 00:48:46.790 --> 00:48:49.040 align:middle line:84% is sitting on the second floor of a house 00:48:49.040 --> 00:48:56.720 align:middle line:84% and looking out at the ocean and the boardwalk 00:48:56.720 --> 00:48:59.240 align:middle line:84% and his two great uncles, who are sitting on the porch 00:48:59.240 --> 00:49:00.301 align:middle line:90% underneath. 00:49:00.301 --> 00:49:03.070 align:middle line:90% 00:49:03.070 --> 00:49:06.840 align:middle line:90% All That We Try to Do. 00:49:06.840 --> 00:49:10.040 align:middle line:84% I have been thinking about love, how hard it 00:49:10.040 --> 00:49:13.400 align:middle line:84% is to remember how to fall in love, 00:49:13.400 --> 00:49:16.580 align:middle line:84% how love has the frankness of giving in 00:49:16.580 --> 00:49:19.070 align:middle line:90% and the firmness of logic. 00:49:19.070 --> 00:49:22.100 align:middle line:84% And yet, when I tried to discover this order, 00:49:22.100 --> 00:49:26.390 align:middle line:84% I noticed far down on the beach, the swimmers testing 00:49:26.390 --> 00:49:31.130 align:middle line:84% the water, which must have been colder than the air in winter. 00:49:31.130 --> 00:49:33.710 align:middle line:84% And I noticed on the porch below me, 00:49:33.710 --> 00:49:37.340 align:middle line:84% the two elderly brothers, my great uncles, 00:49:37.340 --> 00:49:39.920 align:middle line:84% staring at the girls on the boardwalk 00:49:39.920 --> 00:49:43.130 align:middle line:84% and, when the sun was right, at boats 00:49:43.130 --> 00:49:46.580 align:middle line:90% sailing on the sea beyond. 00:49:46.580 --> 00:49:50.180 align:middle line:84% Up in my shared rented room behind the window, 00:49:50.180 --> 00:49:56.150 align:middle line:84% I could remember my love for a girl 15 years ago in summer. 00:49:56.150 --> 00:49:59.810 align:middle line:84% Light through the trees on her black hair as she knelt 00:49:59.810 --> 00:50:03.710 align:middle line:84% beside me, having just done something she didn't 00:50:03.710 --> 00:50:07.370 align:middle line:90% know people did, even in love. 00:50:07.370 --> 00:50:12.350 align:middle line:84% The effect would last for many years, though we never married. 00:50:12.350 --> 00:50:15.200 align:middle line:84% The prickly, shy girl and the boy 00:50:15.200 --> 00:50:18.110 align:middle line:84% who did not know what to say about love. 00:50:18.110 --> 00:50:22.730 align:middle line:84% So we spit at a horse dragging a wagon of tomatoes and eggs 00:50:22.730 --> 00:50:25.430 align:middle line:90% past his house. 00:50:25.430 --> 00:50:28.490 align:middle line:84% I remembered wanting to make another kind of love 00:50:28.490 --> 00:50:33.650 align:middle line:84% with her, not to the body but to whatever rose quietly 00:50:33.650 --> 00:50:36.410 align:middle line:90% out of us. 00:50:36.410 --> 00:50:39.590 align:middle line:84% When I looked up again, three teenage girls 00:50:39.590 --> 00:50:43.640 align:middle line:84% in bikinis and sneakers were teasing the brothers. 00:50:43.640 --> 00:50:48.680 align:middle line:84% The girls' poor postures accentuated their breasts. 00:50:48.680 --> 00:50:52.820 align:middle line:84% My great uncles must have been thinking something, though they 00:50:52.820 --> 00:50:55.730 align:middle line:90% neither moved nor spoke. 00:50:55.730 --> 00:50:58.400 align:middle line:84% Each had a daughter and a son with children 00:50:58.400 --> 00:51:02.900 align:middle line:84% who drove to this beach on weekends from their jobs. 00:51:02.900 --> 00:51:06.890 align:middle line:84% The girl I was thinking about had a mouth too perfect. 00:51:06.890 --> 00:51:09.260 align:middle line:90% So she rarely spoke. 00:51:09.260 --> 00:51:13.010 align:middle line:84% That wasn't it, of course, but that's what I thought. 00:51:13.010 --> 00:51:16.100 align:middle line:84% And all that we thought or did, all 00:51:16.100 --> 00:51:19.160 align:middle line:84% that we tried to do to love each other, 00:51:19.160 --> 00:51:21.890 align:middle line:90% what difference has it made? 00:51:21.890 --> 00:51:25.910 align:middle line:84% As though seeing the swimmers in the cold water and the uncles 00:51:25.910 --> 00:51:29.210 align:middle line:84% staring from the porch, as though remembering 00:51:29.210 --> 00:51:34.550 align:middle line:84% that girl I loved such a long time ago calmed me so much, 00:51:34.550 --> 00:51:37.220 align:middle line:90% life could be generalized. 00:51:37.220 --> 00:51:42.230 align:middle line:84% But what, the boardwalk, the teenagers, the old horse 00:51:42.230 --> 00:51:47.330 align:middle line:84% and the driver who yelled, tomatoes, eggs? 00:51:47.330 --> 00:51:50.030 align:middle line:90% Was it too late to fall in love? 00:51:50.030 --> 00:51:51.830 align:middle line:90% I wasn't even listening. 00:51:51.830 --> 00:51:55.970 align:middle line:90% 00:51:55.970 --> 00:52:02.730 align:middle line:84% And this is the last poem and the end of my tea. 00:52:02.730 --> 00:52:06.120 align:middle line:90% 00:52:06.120 --> 00:52:07.900 align:middle line:90% This is called Endless Love. 00:52:07.900 --> 00:52:12.810 align:middle line:90% 00:52:12.810 --> 00:52:16.980 align:middle line:84% We read a story aloud about an endless love. 00:52:16.980 --> 00:52:19.710 align:middle line:84% From it, a little time was missing. 00:52:19.710 --> 00:52:22.530 align:middle line:90% And so I switched off the light. 00:52:22.530 --> 00:52:25.290 align:middle line:84% You, in your gray robe for winter, 00:52:25.290 --> 00:52:28.080 align:middle line:90% helped me off with my shoes. 00:52:28.080 --> 00:52:31.200 align:middle line:84% The window shade was up, the light flat 00:52:31.200 --> 00:52:34.290 align:middle line:90% and dim in late afternoon. 00:52:34.290 --> 00:52:39.180 align:middle line:84% This, you said, is a perfect affair, nothing particularly 00:52:39.180 --> 00:52:43.830 align:middle line:84% true or untrue, just a little missing time, 00:52:43.830 --> 00:52:48.810 align:middle line:84% like the forgotten arousal of an old perfume. 00:52:48.810 --> 00:52:52.200 align:middle line:84% You got up from bed and stared out the window. 00:52:52.200 --> 00:52:55.320 align:middle line:84% You said you were watching two figures talking 00:52:55.320 --> 00:52:57.420 align:middle line:90% beneath the trees. 00:52:57.420 --> 00:52:59.190 align:middle line:90% The room was darkening. 00:52:59.190 --> 00:53:02.220 align:middle line:84% And you looked back at me and shivered, 00:53:02.220 --> 00:53:06.030 align:middle line:84% then looked once more at the tall, white trees 00:53:06.030 --> 00:53:10.350 align:middle line:84% leafless, the snow falling on a deja vu, 00:53:10.350 --> 00:53:15.780 align:middle line:84% remarking how endless and perfect its falling seemed. 00:53:15.780 --> 00:53:16.980 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:53:16.980 --> 00:53:19.730 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:53:19.730 --> 00:53:39.000 align:middle line:90%