WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.435 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.435 --> 00:00:03.060 align:middle line:84% I'll read one more poem from this book, 00:00:03.060 --> 00:00:04.685 align:middle line:84% and then I want to read some new poems. 00:00:04.685 --> 00:00:07.140 align:middle line:90% 00:00:07.140 --> 00:00:08.235 align:middle line:90% "Diving into the Wreck." 00:00:08.235 --> 00:00:12.120 align:middle line:90% 00:00:12.120 --> 00:00:17.310 align:middle line:84% "First having read the book of myths, and loaded the camera, 00:00:17.310 --> 00:00:20.790 align:middle line:84% and checked the edge of a knife-blade, 00:00:20.790 --> 00:00:26.340 align:middle line:84% I put on the body armor of black rubber, the absurd flippers, 00:00:26.340 --> 00:00:30.210 align:middle line:90% the grave and awkward mask. 00:00:30.210 --> 00:00:32.850 align:middle line:84% I'm having to do this, not like Cousteau 00:00:32.850 --> 00:00:37.470 align:middle line:84% with his assiduous team aboard the sun-flooded schooner, 00:00:37.470 --> 00:00:40.530 align:middle line:90% but here alone. 00:00:40.530 --> 00:00:42.150 align:middle line:90% There is a ladder. 00:00:42.150 --> 00:00:45.540 align:middle line:84% The ladder is always there, hanging innocently, close 00:00:45.540 --> 00:00:47.970 align:middle line:90% to the side of the schooner. 00:00:47.970 --> 00:00:51.810 align:middle line:84% We know what it is for, we who have used it. 00:00:51.810 --> 00:00:55.710 align:middle line:84% Otherwise, it's a piece of maritime floss, 00:00:55.710 --> 00:00:59.130 align:middle line:90% some sundry equipment. 00:00:59.130 --> 00:01:00.630 align:middle line:90% I go down. 00:01:00.630 --> 00:01:03.540 align:middle line:84% Rung after rung and still the oxygen 00:01:03.540 --> 00:01:09.870 align:middle line:84% immerses me, the blue light, the clear atoms of our human air. 00:01:09.870 --> 00:01:11.820 align:middle line:90% I go down. 00:01:11.820 --> 00:01:16.980 align:middle line:84% My flippers cripple me, I crawl like an insect down the ladder, 00:01:16.980 --> 00:01:23.550 align:middle line:84% and there is no one to tell me when the ocean will begin. 00:01:23.550 --> 00:01:25.920 align:middle line:84% First the air is blue, and then it 00:01:25.920 --> 00:01:28.560 align:middle line:84% is bluer, and then green, and then black. 00:01:28.560 --> 00:01:32.410 align:middle line:84% I am blacking out, and yet my mask is powerful. 00:01:32.410 --> 00:01:34.950 align:middle line:90% It pumps my blood with power. 00:01:34.950 --> 00:01:37.230 align:middle line:90% The sea is another story. 00:01:37.230 --> 00:01:40.440 align:middle line:84% The sea is not a question of power. 00:01:40.440 --> 00:01:44.760 align:middle line:84% I have to learn alone to turn my body without force 00:01:44.760 --> 00:01:47.970 align:middle line:90% in the deep element. 00:01:47.970 --> 00:01:51.690 align:middle line:84% And now-- it is easy to forget what I came for, 00:01:51.690 --> 00:01:54.510 align:middle line:84% among so many who have always lived here, 00:01:54.510 --> 00:01:58.800 align:middle line:84% swaying their crenellated fans between the reefs. 00:01:58.800 --> 00:02:03.990 align:middle line:84% And besides, you breathe differently down here. 00:02:03.990 --> 00:02:07.200 align:middle line:90% I came to explore the wreck. 00:02:07.200 --> 00:02:09.220 align:middle line:90% The words are purposes. 00:02:09.220 --> 00:02:11.610 align:middle line:90% The words are maps. 00:02:11.610 --> 00:02:13.930 align:middle line:84% I came to see the damage that was done 00:02:13.930 --> 00:02:16.440 align:middle line:90% and the treasures that prevail. 00:02:16.440 --> 00:02:19.200 align:middle line:84% I stroke the beam of my lamp slowly 00:02:19.200 --> 00:02:21.690 align:middle line:84% along the flank of something more 00:02:21.690 --> 00:02:24.510 align:middle line:90% permanent than fish or weed. 00:02:24.510 --> 00:02:26.670 align:middle line:90% The thing I came for-- 00:02:26.670 --> 00:02:29.790 align:middle line:84% the wreck and not the story of the wreck-- 00:02:29.790 --> 00:02:32.760 align:middle line:84% the thing itself, and not the myth. 00:02:32.760 --> 00:02:37.140 align:middle line:84% The drowned face always staring toward the sun, the evidence 00:02:37.140 --> 00:02:42.330 align:middle line:84% of damage worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty, 00:02:42.330 --> 00:02:46.080 align:middle line:84% the ribs of the disaster curving their assertion 00:02:46.080 --> 00:02:49.740 align:middle line:90% against the tentative waters. 00:02:49.740 --> 00:02:51.300 align:middle line:90% This is the place. 00:02:51.300 --> 00:02:56.040 align:middle line:84% And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair streams black, 00:02:56.040 --> 00:02:59.040 align:middle line:90% the merman in his armored body. 00:02:59.040 --> 00:03:01.860 align:middle line:84% We circle silently about the wreck. 00:03:01.860 --> 00:03:04.410 align:middle line:90% We dive into the hold. 00:03:04.410 --> 00:03:05.520 align:middle line:90% I am she. 00:03:05.520 --> 00:03:08.790 align:middle line:84% I am he whose drowned face sleeps 00:03:08.790 --> 00:03:13.590 align:middle line:84% with open eyes, whose breasts still bear the stress, whose 00:03:13.590 --> 00:03:19.680 align:middle line:84% silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies obscurely inside barrels, 00:03:19.680 --> 00:03:23.070 align:middle line:90% Half wedged and left to rot. 00:03:23.070 --> 00:03:25.650 align:middle line:84% We are the half-destroyed instruments 00:03:25.650 --> 00:03:29.040 align:middle line:84% that once held to a course, the water eating 00:03:29.040 --> 00:03:32.460 align:middle line:90% log, the fouled compass. 00:03:32.460 --> 00:03:35.490 align:middle line:90% We are, I am, you are-- 00:03:35.490 --> 00:03:37.500 align:middle line:90% by cowardice or courage-- 00:03:37.500 --> 00:03:41.520 align:middle line:84% the one who find our way back to the scene, 00:03:41.520 --> 00:03:47.010 align:middle line:84% carrying a knife, a camera, a book of myths in which 00:03:47.010 --> 00:03:50.240 align:middle line:90% our names do not appear." 00:03:50.240 --> 00:03:54.000 align:middle line:90%