WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.220 align:middle line:90%


00:00:02.220 --> 00:00:07.650 align:middle line:84%
I'll read a poem doesn't have
anything to do with Indianness.

00:00:07.650 --> 00:00:12.660 align:middle line:84%
A lot of times people think
that you should just be writing

00:00:12.660 --> 00:00:15.120 align:middle line:90%
Indian poems if you're Indian.

00:00:15.120 --> 00:00:18.670 align:middle line:84%
And there are a lot of
other things to write about.

00:00:18.670 --> 00:00:21.360 align:middle line:84%
Here's one called Lady
in a Distant Face.

00:00:21.360 --> 00:00:26.280 align:middle line:84%
And my wife and I once went
to visit a woman who taught up

00:00:26.280 --> 00:00:28.050 align:middle line:90%
at the University of Montana.

00:00:28.050 --> 00:00:31.230 align:middle line:84%
It was on a Sunday
afternoon about 2 o'clock

00:00:31.230 --> 00:00:36.420 align:middle line:90%
and she was very lonely woman.

00:00:36.420 --> 00:00:40.170 align:middle line:84%
And as it turned out, we
stayed with her until 2 o'clock

00:00:40.170 --> 00:00:44.460 align:middle line:84%
at night drinking scotch
for about 12 hours straight,

00:00:44.460 --> 00:00:46.690 align:middle line:90%
and doing a lot of talking.

00:00:46.690 --> 00:00:49.320 align:middle line:84%
But she had been
to France and it

00:00:49.320 --> 00:00:53.610 align:middle line:84%
seemed like her whole life
centered around France.

00:00:53.610 --> 00:00:54.660 align:middle line:90%
And she wasn't in France.

00:00:54.660 --> 00:00:58.230 align:middle line:84%
She was in Missoula and
felt really constricted.

00:00:58.230 --> 00:01:02.700 align:middle line:84%
So it wasn't quite the
same thing she thought.

00:01:02.700 --> 00:01:08.400 align:middle line:84%
And so when we came home,
I wrote this poem, not

00:01:08.400 --> 00:01:08.940 align:middle line:90%
that night.

00:01:08.940 --> 00:01:15.510 align:middle line:84%
I couldn't spell my
own name that night.

00:01:15.510 --> 00:01:17.490 align:middle line:90%
Lady in a Distant Face.

00:01:17.490 --> 00:01:21.840 align:middle line:84%
The odd way you comb your hair,
those big hands drawing circles

00:01:21.840 --> 00:01:24.660 align:middle line:84%
in a room and a
Mormon background,

00:01:24.660 --> 00:01:27.660 align:middle line:84%
you become the Sunday
all day scotch friend

00:01:27.660 --> 00:01:31.320 align:middle line:84%
who needs a friend to
keep these mountains back.

00:01:31.320 --> 00:01:35.280 align:middle line:84%
We came up country not
knowing your Paris days,

00:01:35.280 --> 00:01:39.210 align:middle line:84%
the summer wide search for
Frenchmen with wild hair

00:01:39.210 --> 00:01:42.300 align:middle line:84%
and eyes that made
for easy lies.

00:01:42.300 --> 00:01:46.920 align:middle line:84%
No life is chilly as your own
when time makes parents foreign

00:01:46.920 --> 00:01:50.070 align:middle line:84%
and brothers come to mock
you when you're drunk.

00:01:50.070 --> 00:01:52.050 align:middle line:90%
Summer was no lifetime.

00:01:52.050 --> 00:01:56.700 align:middle line:84%
It rolled with games and play
on sand with sullen kings.

00:01:56.700 --> 00:01:58.530 align:middle line:90%
Bikinis fit you then.

00:01:58.530 --> 00:02:01.470 align:middle line:84%
You fit the beaches
with your famous boys.

00:02:01.470 --> 00:02:05.370 align:middle line:84%
Life so shallow, you
could end it with a kiss.

00:02:05.370 --> 00:02:08.400 align:middle line:84%
What bird could go
alone this unnoticed?

00:02:08.400 --> 00:02:11.850 align:middle line:84%
On those beaches did
you fly for seven years

00:02:11.850 --> 00:02:15.120 align:middle line:90%
then drop exhausted in the sea?

00:02:15.120 --> 00:02:18.120 align:middle line:84%
The fishermen they
knew you for a fraud

00:02:18.120 --> 00:02:22.770 align:middle line:84%
rescued you with words
that meant go home, home.

00:02:22.770 --> 00:02:26.130 align:middle line:84%
The steamer edged you from
the scene of what is nice,

00:02:26.130 --> 00:02:29.500 align:middle line:84%
the Paris days of sun
and mortgaged gold.

00:02:29.500 --> 00:02:33.870 align:middle line:84%
And now here in these mountains
that hold you from yourself,

00:02:33.870 --> 00:02:39.030 align:middle line:84%
the wind blowing down your final
face, you tell us what we know.

00:02:39.030 --> 00:02:42.000 align:middle line:84%
Time is clean and
brief for girls

00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:48.380 align:middle line:84%
in a wild time passed for ladies
up like smoke in narrow wind.

00:02:48.380 --> 00:02:55.000 align:middle line:90%