WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.630 align:middle line:90%


00:00:00.630 --> 00:00:03.960 align:middle line:90%
This poem is called Gray Poem.

00:00:03.960 --> 00:00:05.370 align:middle line:90%
It had an odd beginning.

00:00:05.370 --> 00:00:10.570 align:middle line:90%


00:00:10.570 --> 00:00:15.310 align:middle line:84%
I had a student at
Fresno who wrote a poem.

00:00:15.310 --> 00:00:18.190 align:middle line:90%


00:00:18.190 --> 00:00:23.710 align:middle line:84%
And it was a poem that only
half facetiously at least one

00:00:23.710 --> 00:00:26.060 align:middle line:84%
of the questions that
the poem asked was

00:00:26.060 --> 00:00:30.370 align:middle line:90%
why I had such gray in my hair.

00:00:30.370 --> 00:00:33.880 align:middle line:84%
I could have told him if you had
asked me very straight I would

00:00:33.880 --> 00:00:38.230 align:middle line:84%
have said students
like you but he didn't.

00:00:38.230 --> 00:00:42.640 align:middle line:90%
At any rate, it was a nice poem.

00:00:42.640 --> 00:00:46.690 align:middle line:84%
And I began to write a
poem in answer to him.

00:00:46.690 --> 00:00:52.060 align:middle line:84%
And my notion of it was to
write a kind of comic poem

00:00:52.060 --> 00:00:53.500 align:middle line:90%
or a somewhat frivolous poem.

00:00:53.500 --> 00:00:56.240 align:middle line:90%


00:00:56.240 --> 00:00:59.055 align:middle line:84%
And the more I went into
the poem, the less frivolous

00:00:59.055 --> 00:00:59.555 align:middle line:90%
it became.

00:00:59.555 --> 00:01:02.820 align:middle line:90%


00:01:02.820 --> 00:01:04.709 align:middle line:90%
Gray Poem.

00:01:04.709 --> 00:01:08.040 align:middle line:84%
It's in four small sections and
I'll simply pause between them.

00:01:08.040 --> 00:01:13.910 align:middle line:90%


00:01:13.910 --> 00:01:15.730 align:middle line:90%
Another gray morning.

00:01:15.730 --> 00:01:21.460 align:middle line:84%
In this month of valley
fog, everything seems old.

00:01:21.460 --> 00:01:24.535 align:middle line:84%
Little threads and roots
sucking a cold sea.

00:01:24.535 --> 00:01:27.270 align:middle line:90%


00:01:27.270 --> 00:01:30.390 align:middle line:84%
When I look into it,
the mirror caps my face

00:01:30.390 --> 00:01:33.390 align:middle line:90%
in its silver hands.

00:01:33.390 --> 00:01:37.710 align:middle line:84%
I hear my grandmother whispering
beneath her shawl cloth

00:01:37.710 --> 00:01:44.130 align:middle line:84%
of forgetfulness, skull of
the one night, shag of wisdom,

00:01:44.130 --> 00:01:45.495 align:middle line:90%
white grass of misery.

00:01:45.495 --> 00:01:48.110 align:middle line:90%


00:01:48.110 --> 00:01:51.545 align:middle line:84%
In the yards our children
are turning into clouds.

00:01:51.545 --> 00:01:56.600 align:middle line:90%


00:01:56.600 --> 00:01:58.685 align:middle line:84%
There are times
when I shut my eyes.

00:01:58.685 --> 00:02:01.190 align:middle line:90%


00:02:01.190 --> 00:02:06.860 align:middle line:84%
I stand in a place from which
journeys are forever beginning.

00:02:06.860 --> 00:02:11.210 align:middle line:84%
In the distance, a
small feather of smoke,

00:02:11.210 --> 00:02:13.760 align:middle line:84%
a haze where the
Earth falls off.

00:02:13.760 --> 00:02:19.150 align:middle line:90%


00:02:19.150 --> 00:02:24.960 align:middle line:84%
Now that I'm this far, I've
come to like things weathered.

00:02:24.960 --> 00:02:27.780 align:middle line:84%
All that is whipped
and polished by wind

00:02:27.780 --> 00:02:32.490 align:middle line:84%
to the color of shirts
hanging in poor backyards,

00:02:32.490 --> 00:02:34.680 align:middle line:84%
the fever a long
time and the slabs

00:02:34.680 --> 00:02:40.230 align:middle line:84%
of bans, water rubbing the
first light, salt crust of meat

00:02:40.230 --> 00:02:41.295 align:middle line:90%
for a long march.

00:02:41.295 --> 00:02:44.180 align:middle line:90%


00:02:44.180 --> 00:02:47.750 align:middle line:84%
I think of the
twilights gray eyes.

00:02:47.750 --> 00:02:52.010 align:middle line:84%
They are so beautiful,
so grave with a longing

00:02:52.010 --> 00:02:53.690 align:middle line:90%
I never quite understand.

00:02:53.690 --> 00:02:57.750 align:middle line:90%


00:02:57.750 --> 00:03:01.110 align:middle line:90%
The window darkens.

00:03:01.110 --> 00:03:03.660 align:middle line:84%
A man bends over me
and kisses my cheek.

00:03:03.660 --> 00:03:06.220 align:middle line:90%


00:03:06.220 --> 00:03:09.010 align:middle line:84%
When the sun rose,
he says I turned up

00:03:09.010 --> 00:03:14.800 align:middle line:84%
my hands to the light,
every road was on fire.

00:03:14.800 --> 00:03:17.110 align:middle line:90%
I call him father.

00:03:17.110 --> 00:03:21.120 align:middle line:84%
He was gray, and
his shoes are gray.

00:03:21.120 --> 00:03:23.103 align:middle line:90%