WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.540 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.540 --> 00:00:02.970 align:middle line:84% This is a poem for a poet named Mekeel McBride, 00:00:02.970 --> 00:00:03.900 align:middle line:90% whose wonderful. 00:00:03.900 --> 00:00:06.690 align:middle line:84% She's just had a book published with Carnegie Mellon Press. 00:00:06.690 --> 00:00:09.000 align:middle line:84% It's called "No Ordinary World," and she's 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:10.873 align:middle line:90% one of my best friends. 00:00:10.873 --> 00:00:12.540 align:middle line:84% The wonderful thing about Mekeel's poems 00:00:12.540 --> 00:00:14.730 align:middle line:84% is that they're full of exotic names of things 00:00:14.730 --> 00:00:16.440 align:middle line:90% and exotic objects. 00:00:16.440 --> 00:00:19.027 align:middle line:84% And whenever you talk to her, you're always very aware 00:00:19.027 --> 00:00:20.610 align:middle line:84% of the things that you say because you 00:00:20.610 --> 00:00:24.080 align:middle line:84% know that she's going to lift them and use them in a poem. 00:00:24.080 --> 00:00:27.450 align:middle line:90% Her poems have kimonos in them. 00:00:27.450 --> 00:00:32.189 align:middle line:84% She has lines like "the bones of the dead shine like hooks 00:00:32.189 --> 00:00:34.950 align:middle line:90% through the transparent Earth." 00:00:34.950 --> 00:00:37.330 align:middle line:90% She has a wonderful imagination. 00:00:37.330 --> 00:00:37.830 align:middle line:90% I love her. 00:00:37.830 --> 00:00:39.150 align:middle line:90% Anyway, we were packing. 00:00:39.150 --> 00:00:41.070 align:middle line:84% I was living in Cambridge-- we were packing. 00:00:41.070 --> 00:00:43.140 align:middle line:84% I was moving to New York, and this is about that. 00:00:43.140 --> 00:00:44.640 align:middle line:84% This is so you know who Mekeel is. 00:00:44.640 --> 00:00:47.390 align:middle line:90% 00:00:47.390 --> 00:00:51.720 align:middle line:84% "Cuttings, bruises to the elbows. 00:00:51.720 --> 00:00:56.840 align:middle line:84% No, ink from The Boston Globe smudged our arms. 00:00:56.840 --> 00:01:00.230 align:middle line:84% I handled each dinner plate as though it were a page 00:01:00.230 --> 00:01:03.680 align:middle line:90% of an illuminated manuscript. 00:01:03.680 --> 00:01:07.490 align:middle line:84% While you rolled each spice jar into a newsprint cylinder-- 00:01:07.490 --> 00:01:11.840 align:middle line:84% sweet basil, dill, turmeric, saffron, 00:01:11.840 --> 00:01:16.610 align:middle line:84% as though memorizing the vocabulary for your next poem. 00:01:16.610 --> 00:01:19.820 align:middle line:84% You fit the jars into one enormous okra pot, 00:01:19.820 --> 00:01:22.400 align:middle line:90% and taped the cover shut. 00:01:22.400 --> 00:01:26.450 align:middle line:84% "We joked about liberating objects from their places. 00:01:26.450 --> 00:01:28.910 align:middle line:84% How things seem numinous when divorced 00:01:28.910 --> 00:01:30.980 align:middle line:90% from their ordinary lives. 00:01:30.980 --> 00:01:33.950 align:middle line:84% The oak table, oddly out of place. 00:01:33.950 --> 00:01:39.410 align:middle line:84% The chairs, and I, so oddly out of place in them. 00:01:39.410 --> 00:01:41.300 align:middle line:84% I thought of those things at hand 00:01:41.300 --> 00:01:45.710 align:middle line:84% as personalities, intricate societies of color and shape, 00:01:45.710 --> 00:01:48.470 align:middle line:84% in which I could hollow out a nest. 00:01:48.470 --> 00:01:53.060 align:middle line:84% I thought that nest permanent, as unshakable as I was. 00:01:53.060 --> 00:01:56.120 align:middle line:84% But there are Edens we abandoned for new ones. 00:01:56.120 --> 00:02:02.000 align:middle line:84% And transplanted, I still can feel the emotion of that loss. 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:05.270 align:middle line:84% "Your poem arrived today, with not one word 00:02:05.270 --> 00:02:07.700 align:middle line:90% I guessed you'd use in it. 00:02:07.700 --> 00:02:11.090 align:middle line:84% Instead, you say, 'there are kinds of love 00:02:11.090 --> 00:02:14.870 align:middle line:84% that won't be spoken of directly. 00:02:14.870 --> 00:02:17.210 align:middle line:84% The coleus I'd left for dead, that 00:02:17.210 --> 00:02:21.920 align:middle line:84% hung neglected in my window, now flourishes in yours. 00:02:21.920 --> 00:02:25.070 align:middle line:90% New cuttings root on the sill. 00:02:25.070 --> 00:02:28.400 align:middle line:84% Such gardens feel temporary until we learn 00:02:28.400 --> 00:02:31.370 align:middle line:90% to leave what we most love. 00:02:31.370 --> 00:02:35.870 align:middle line:84% Your poem seemed to say, 'dear friend, you were loved. 00:02:35.870 --> 00:02:38.230 align:middle line:90% You can come home now.'"