WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.820 align:middle line:90%


00:00:02.820 --> 00:00:05.730 align:middle line:84%
This is a poem called,
'Learning to speak.

00:00:05.730 --> 00:00:14.800 align:middle line:90%


00:00:14.800 --> 00:00:17.920 align:middle line:84%
As a child running
loose, I said it

00:00:17.920 --> 00:00:25.000 align:middle line:84%
this way, bird, bird a
startled sound at field's edge.

00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:27.790 align:middle line:84%
The sound my mouth makes
pushing away the cold.

00:00:27.790 --> 00:00:30.520 align:middle line:90%


00:00:30.520 --> 00:00:33.990 align:middle line:84%
So at the end of
this quiet afternoon,

00:00:33.990 --> 00:00:38.220 align:middle line:84%
wanting to write the love
poems I've never written.

00:00:38.220 --> 00:00:40.530 align:middle line:84%
I turn from the shadow
in the Cottonwood

00:00:40.530 --> 00:00:46.770 align:middle line:84%
and say Blackbird, as if to
you, there is the Blackbird,

00:00:46.770 --> 00:00:51.890 align:middle line:84%
Blackbird until its darkness
is the darkness of a woman's

00:00:51.890 --> 00:00:57.100 align:middle line:84%
hair falling across
my upturned face,

00:00:57.100 --> 00:01:00.550 align:middle line:84%
and I go on speaking
into the night.

00:01:00.550 --> 00:01:06.760 align:middle line:84%
The Oriole, the
flicker, the goldfinch.

00:01:06.760 --> 00:01:09.000 align:middle line:90%