WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.610 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.610 --> 00:00:02.830 align:middle line:84% I'd like to read a poem called The Glass Paperweight. 00:00:02.830 --> 00:00:05.110 align:middle line:84% But I should have brought it with me. 00:00:05.110 --> 00:00:06.543 align:middle line:90% I just got one of Arizona. 00:00:06.543 --> 00:00:07.960 align:middle line:84% You know those little paperweights 00:00:07.960 --> 00:00:11.470 align:middle line:84% that have snow scenes inside and you shake them up and it snows? 00:00:11.470 --> 00:00:13.150 align:middle line:90% Well, I have about 50 of them. 00:00:13.150 --> 00:00:15.730 align:middle line:84% And every place I go, every airport, I just buy everything 00:00:15.730 --> 00:00:17.020 align:middle line:90% they have, all of them. 00:00:17.020 --> 00:00:18.145 align:middle line:90% So I have one from Holland. 00:00:18.145 --> 00:00:19.103 align:middle line:90% I didn't go to Holland. 00:00:19.103 --> 00:00:20.110 align:middle line:90% Someone gave that to me. 00:00:20.110 --> 00:00:21.550 align:middle line:84% But I've got them from everywhere. 00:00:21.550 --> 00:00:25.990 align:middle line:84% Now I have three from Arizona with little road runners 00:00:25.990 --> 00:00:27.160 align:middle line:90% running in the snow. 00:00:27.160 --> 00:00:28.940 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:28.940 --> 00:00:30.910 align:middle line:90% 00:00:30.910 --> 00:00:33.190 align:middle line:84% I also bought one today with a cowboy and Indian 00:00:33.190 --> 00:00:35.216 align:middle line:90% shooting each other on a seesaw. 00:00:35.216 --> 00:00:37.696 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:37.696 --> 00:00:45.150 align:middle line:90% 00:00:45.150 --> 00:00:45.990 align:middle line:90% I can't wait. 00:00:45.990 --> 00:00:47.700 align:middle line:84% If there's an earthquake, they're all 00:00:47.700 --> 00:00:49.050 align:middle line:90% going to snow at the same time. 00:00:49.050 --> 00:00:53.300 align:middle line:90% 00:00:53.300 --> 00:00:54.710 align:middle line:90% The Glass Paperweight. 00:00:54.710 --> 00:00:55.850 align:middle line:90% The poem is in two parts. 00:00:55.850 --> 00:00:58.870 align:middle line:90% 00:00:58.870 --> 00:01:01.630 align:middle line:84% Over the rooftops, the city's green horizon 00:01:01.630 --> 00:01:05.140 align:middle line:84% shines through the terrarium on the sill. 00:01:05.140 --> 00:01:08.320 align:middle line:84% My plants flourish in their tropics. 00:01:08.320 --> 00:01:11.800 align:middle line:84% The green smell of weather is the way life smells, 00:01:11.800 --> 00:01:15.580 align:middle line:90% an oasis breathing. 00:01:15.580 --> 00:01:18.790 align:middle line:84% Who navigated the ship into the bottle or the message 00:01:18.790 --> 00:01:23.050 align:middle line:84% in the bottle that reads, rescue, an island? 00:01:23.050 --> 00:01:26.140 align:middle line:84% Before my windows, I lean out like a figurehead 00:01:26.140 --> 00:01:29.740 align:middle line:84% against the glass as against a great wind. 00:01:29.740 --> 00:01:32.260 align:middle line:84% In the mind of the island's one survivor, 00:01:32.260 --> 00:01:35.830 align:middle line:84% the rescuer is always sailing toward his other self 00:01:35.830 --> 00:01:39.730 align:middle line:90% who swims to meet him. 00:01:39.730 --> 00:01:43.030 align:middle line:84% Is the paperweight, this blizzard in my palm, 00:01:43.030 --> 00:01:45.880 align:middle line:90% my own dream of escape? 00:01:45.880 --> 00:01:50.470 align:middle line:84% Inside, a man splits logs the width of toothpicks. 00:01:50.470 --> 00:01:53.050 align:middle line:84% Snow falls through the liquid air, 00:01:53.050 --> 00:01:57.760 align:middle line:84% or the snow has just fallen, and the sky is clear. 00:01:57.760 --> 00:02:01.750 align:middle line:84% A carved backdrop of Swiss Alps leads a blue stripe 00:02:01.750 --> 00:02:03.790 align:middle line:84% down the careful line of evergreens 00:02:03.790 --> 00:02:07.420 align:middle line:84% and continues melting onto the cottage roof. 00:02:07.420 --> 00:02:12.610 align:middle line:84% Beneath, I imagine, something good is cooking. 00:02:12.610 --> 00:02:16.660 align:middle line:84% Decaled on the kitchen window, a woman's face. 00:02:16.660 --> 00:02:20.620 align:middle line:84% Smoke hangs over a tiny chimney like a parachute that 00:02:20.620 --> 00:02:22.810 align:middle line:90% never lands. 00:02:22.810 --> 00:02:26.110 align:middle line:84% Throughout the snowstorm, there is a sunset going on, 00:02:26.110 --> 00:02:29.290 align:middle line:84% as the woman watches the child in the sled, whose 00:02:29.290 --> 00:02:33.700 align:middle line:84% cap is coated with the identical blue Alp. 00:02:33.700 --> 00:02:36.580 align:middle line:84% A snowstorm is always about to happen. 00:02:36.580 --> 00:02:39.400 align:middle line:90% Here is a country under siege. 00:02:39.400 --> 00:02:43.330 align:middle line:84% The children in the cottage feel the world tip over 00:02:43.330 --> 00:02:46.120 align:middle line:84% and, with an astronaut's notion of gravity, 00:02:46.120 --> 00:02:49.210 align:middle line:84% turn over in their beds and dream. 00:02:49.210 --> 00:02:52.270 align:middle line:84% But the child in the sled in the paperweight 00:02:52.270 --> 00:02:57.250 align:middle line:84% is always caught outside, regardless of the weather. 00:02:57.250 --> 00:03:00.730 align:middle line:84% He stares at the sky that is always collapsing and sees 00:03:00.730 --> 00:03:04.240 align:middle line:84% my magnified lunar face rise, wishing 00:03:04.240 --> 00:03:10.510 align:middle line:84% the light or my hands' heat wave would melt the immutable snow. 00:03:10.510 --> 00:03:13.300 align:middle line:84% I stare through the glass an inch away pressed 00:03:13.300 --> 00:03:17.980 align:middle line:84% against the window, like the mother calling to her child. 00:03:17.980 --> 00:03:19.900 align:middle line:84% If only she could unglue her mouth 00:03:19.900 --> 00:03:25.060 align:middle line:84% from the glass, where her breath sticks, like frost on the pane. 00:03:25.060 --> 00:03:27.850 align:middle line:84% If only the sound could leave her mouth the way 00:03:27.850 --> 00:03:31.360 align:middle line:84% a locomotive shoots from a mountain tunnel, 00:03:31.360 --> 00:03:35.230 align:middle line:84% then the order of their silence would break with my cry, 00:03:35.230 --> 00:03:38.530 align:middle line:84% moving its bat-perfect sonar through the climate 00:03:38.530 --> 00:03:41.380 align:middle line:90% of their sorrow. 00:03:41.380 --> 00:03:45.760 align:middle line:84% Frozen in that lit interior, who will warn them when 00:03:45.760 --> 00:03:48.430 align:middle line:90% the bad weather will begin? 00:03:48.430 --> 00:03:51.600 align:middle line:90% Who will bring the child in? 00:03:51.600 --> 00:03:53.405 align:middle line:90%