WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.964 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.964 --> 00:00:01.928 align:middle line:90% This is the last poem. 00:00:01.928 --> 00:00:03.374 align:middle line:90% Thanks for clapping. 00:00:03.374 --> 00:00:05.262 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:05.262 --> 00:00:06.720 align:middle line:84% It's better than throwing tomatoes. 00:00:06.720 --> 00:00:08.115 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:08.115 --> 00:00:10.440 align:middle line:90% 00:00:10.440 --> 00:00:12.220 align:middle line:84% This is a new book I'm working on. 00:00:12.220 --> 00:00:14.542 align:middle line:90% These things are really handy. 00:00:14.542 --> 00:00:15.750 align:middle line:90% They're dissertation binders. 00:00:15.750 --> 00:00:19.020 align:middle line:90% 00:00:19.020 --> 00:00:21.870 align:middle line:84% This book, its working title is Wedding Day, 00:00:21.870 --> 00:00:28.860 align:middle line:84% and after writing this book, I became a little uninterested 00:00:28.860 --> 00:00:33.160 align:middle line:84% in pain and darkness, so there's plenty 00:00:33.160 --> 00:00:35.340 align:middle line:90% of pain in here in the book. 00:00:35.340 --> 00:00:37.770 align:middle line:84% I became much more interested in the difficulty 00:00:37.770 --> 00:00:41.880 align:middle line:84% of maintaining happiness and inviting it into your life 00:00:41.880 --> 00:00:43.290 align:middle line:90% and satisfaction. 00:00:43.290 --> 00:00:46.260 align:middle line:84% And of course, this book, it's also 00:00:46.260 --> 00:00:49.860 align:middle line:84% related to relationships, love relationships, and really 00:00:49.860 --> 00:00:52.630 align:middle line:84% any kind of reconciliation of opposites. 00:00:52.630 --> 00:00:57.000 align:middle line:84% So this first poem in the book is called "Nurse of Flame," 00:00:57.000 --> 00:01:00.370 align:middle line:84% and it begins in an operating room 00:01:00.370 --> 00:01:02.820 align:middle line:90% but quickly moves out of it. 00:01:02.820 --> 00:01:05.730 align:middle line:84% And what we have to be willing to do 00:01:05.730 --> 00:01:08.220 align:middle line:84% is be in an operating room where they're doing a heart 00:01:08.220 --> 00:01:10.210 align:middle line:84% transplant, and then there's a box 00:01:10.210 --> 00:01:12.425 align:middle line:84% that they bring the heart in into the room 00:01:12.425 --> 00:01:13.800 align:middle line:84% and that's full of ice and stuff, 00:01:13.800 --> 00:01:15.467 align:middle line:84% and so what you have to be willing to do 00:01:15.467 --> 00:01:18.400 align:middle line:90% is dive into the box. 00:01:18.400 --> 00:01:22.140 align:middle line:90% And under the box is the woods. 00:01:22.140 --> 00:01:24.450 align:middle line:84% Under the ice in this box is the woods where 00:01:24.450 --> 00:01:29.970 align:middle line:84% this poem takes place, so that's the kind of surreality of it. 00:01:29.970 --> 00:01:33.460 align:middle line:84% And then it moves back and forth between the heart transplant 00:01:33.460 --> 00:01:35.770 align:middle line:90% and also these woods. 00:01:35.770 --> 00:01:42.930 align:middle line:84% "Nurse of Flame--" "Do you think the stories in here 00:01:42.930 --> 00:01:46.740 align:middle line:84% in the nurses hurrying it into the transplant room, 00:01:46.740 --> 00:01:50.970 align:middle line:84% the drama of the lifted heart, the doctors with their blades 00:01:50.970 --> 00:01:54.720 align:middle line:90% and the thread to mend it. 00:01:54.720 --> 00:02:00.900 align:middle line:84% The metaphor-- as in, my heart is dead. 00:02:00.900 --> 00:02:06.150 align:middle line:84% As in, please doctor, give me a new one. 00:02:06.150 --> 00:02:09.810 align:middle line:84% But the story is not in there anymore. 00:02:09.810 --> 00:02:13.140 align:middle line:84% The story is in the ice, in the pale green box 00:02:13.140 --> 00:02:18.390 align:middle line:84% they've abandoned having plucked its valved cache. 00:02:18.390 --> 00:02:23.760 align:middle line:84% In the donor box, water beads around its rim. 00:02:23.760 --> 00:02:25.410 align:middle line:90% Everyone's so busy now. 00:02:25.410 --> 00:02:28.440 align:middle line:84% You can dig your hands into the ice. 00:02:28.440 --> 00:02:30.960 align:middle line:90% No one will see. 00:02:30.960 --> 00:02:36.810 align:middle line:84% You can lift yourself into it, dig your whole body down. 00:02:36.810 --> 00:02:42.960 align:middle line:84% Cold, white, that's how it is inside. 00:02:42.960 --> 00:02:46.050 align:middle line:84% That's how it is in the woods where you're walking-- 00:02:46.050 --> 00:02:50.100 align:middle line:84% the crushed ice above you like a layer of sky. 00:02:50.100 --> 00:02:53.490 align:middle line:84% Some sun under it, making it gleam. 00:02:53.490 --> 00:02:58.020 align:middle line:84% Some weak eye between the lid of snow and the lid of white sky, 00:02:58.020 --> 00:03:01.830 align:middle line:90% a pearl of cataract and white. 00:03:01.830 --> 00:03:02.850 align:middle line:90% You're walking. 00:03:02.850 --> 00:03:04.770 align:middle line:84% You've got your palm to your chest. 00:03:04.770 --> 00:03:07.950 align:middle line:84% There's nothing in there, not a thing. 00:03:07.950 --> 00:03:11.760 align:middle line:84% This is the beginning of the story. 00:03:11.760 --> 00:03:15.810 align:middle line:90% As in, I have no heart. 00:03:15.810 --> 00:03:19.800 align:middle line:84% As in, I have worked a long time at not having to love. 00:03:19.800 --> 00:03:23.370 align:middle line:90% My world is crystal beauty. 00:03:23.370 --> 00:03:28.830 align:middle line:84% The snow spins up like sugar from every black-barked tree. 00:03:28.830 --> 00:03:31.990 align:middle line:84% You're safe in your borders as the trees are safe. 00:03:31.990 --> 00:03:36.000 align:middle line:84% How the snow rests on them but does not penetrate. 00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:39.600 align:middle line:84% As in my winter has lasted 34 years, 00:03:39.600 --> 00:03:43.560 align:middle line:90% a deep February I have loved. 00:03:43.560 --> 00:03:46.560 align:middle line:84% Above you, they're flushing the new heart with blood-- 00:03:46.560 --> 00:03:48.690 align:middle line:84% the breathing patient like a factory 00:03:48.690 --> 00:03:52.560 align:middle line:90% bellows, driving the doctors on. 00:03:52.560 --> 00:03:57.600 align:middle line:84% It's a wind through the trees, a sequined updraught filling 00:03:57.600 --> 00:04:00.540 align:middle line:84% the air, guiding you into the stories turn where 00:04:00.540 --> 00:04:04.290 align:middle line:84% you continue on, expecting nothing but the wood in snow. 00:04:04.290 --> 00:04:07.170 align:middle line:84% You have worked a long time at not having to love. 00:04:07.170 --> 00:04:11.580 align:middle line:84% You have worked a long time alone. 00:04:11.580 --> 00:04:16.680 align:middle line:84% To see him there slumped at the foot of the birch, 00:04:16.680 --> 00:04:20.310 align:middle line:90% such a bright dead man. 00:04:20.310 --> 00:04:24.360 align:middle line:84% He's all sprawled out like straw. 00:04:24.360 --> 00:04:25.440 align:middle line:90% You need him. 00:04:25.440 --> 00:04:27.120 align:middle line:90% You're very scientific. 00:04:27.120 --> 00:04:31.080 align:middle line:84% You think his ribs would make a fine grit. 00:04:31.080 --> 00:04:33.430 align:middle line:84% Because it's something visual, something 00:04:33.430 --> 00:04:35.880 align:middle line:84% aesthetic, seeing a triangle of fire 00:04:35.880 --> 00:04:40.050 align:middle line:84% there in the double ladder of bone. 00:04:40.050 --> 00:04:42.030 align:middle line:90% So you dig. 00:04:42.030 --> 00:04:43.740 align:middle line:90% It's something to do. 00:04:43.740 --> 00:04:45.900 align:middle line:84% It's surprisingly easy like he's made 00:04:45.900 --> 00:04:50.100 align:middle line:84% of pink soil, flesh baking up on either sides of your burrowing 00:04:50.100 --> 00:04:51.690 align:middle line:90% hands. 00:04:51.690 --> 00:04:53.700 align:middle line:84% Until you've got it, the treasure, 00:04:53.700 --> 00:04:56.790 align:middle line:84% the firm white fingers making a cage from the wine 00:04:56.790 --> 00:05:00.550 align:middle line:90% dark frozen heart. 00:05:00.550 --> 00:05:04.030 align:middle line:84% And the doctors are sewing the patient up, 00:05:04.030 --> 00:05:05.380 align:middle line:90% and the patient sits up. 00:05:05.380 --> 00:05:06.790 align:middle line:90% He's got new feeling. 00:05:06.790 --> 00:05:08.860 align:middle line:84% You wanted the story to be in here, 00:05:08.860 --> 00:05:10.420 align:middle line:90% where they do it all for you. 00:05:10.420 --> 00:05:12.370 align:middle line:84% The literal healing, knocked out, 00:05:12.370 --> 00:05:14.380 align:middle line:84% cut through, sewn up, and awakened. 00:05:14.380 --> 00:05:16.870 align:middle line:84% The miracle of not having to feel it. 00:05:16.870 --> 00:05:19.720 align:middle line:90% To simply wake up new. 00:05:19.720 --> 00:05:22.450 align:middle line:84% For you are the doctor, the diagnosis. 00:05:22.450 --> 00:05:23.230 align:middle line:90% You're sick. 00:05:23.230 --> 00:05:23.980 align:middle line:90% You're sick. 00:05:23.980 --> 00:05:26.860 align:middle line:90% You haven't any heart. 00:05:26.860 --> 00:05:29.300 align:middle line:84% And because you're cold, because it's nothing, 00:05:29.300 --> 00:05:33.940 align:middle line:84% instead you must be the nurse of flame. 00:05:33.940 --> 00:05:36.580 align:middle line:84% I'm telling you this, but it's a wind 00:05:36.580 --> 00:05:41.110 align:middle line:84% through the trees, a bit of snow in your eye. 00:05:41.110 --> 00:05:42.430 align:middle line:90% You can flick it away. 00:05:42.430 --> 00:05:45.070 align:middle line:84% You are the master hand with the matches, 00:05:45.070 --> 00:05:49.330 align:middle line:84% thinking his ribs could make a grate. 00:05:49.330 --> 00:05:52.390 align:middle line:84% A few twigs, dried leaves, a handful of needles 00:05:52.390 --> 00:05:55.240 align:middle line:84% dropped from the pines, you stuff it all in there. 00:05:55.240 --> 00:05:59.080 align:middle line:84% You strike the yellow tip of the match against the sand paper 00:05:59.080 --> 00:06:00.370 align:middle line:90% and watch it flare. 00:06:00.370 --> 00:06:02.650 align:middle line:84% The morphing of the yellow pearl that 00:06:02.650 --> 00:06:05.380 align:middle line:84% is a spade of frame in your cupped hands. 00:06:05.380 --> 00:06:08.110 align:middle line:84% You drop it in there, watch the leaves take. 00:06:08.110 --> 00:06:13.090 align:middle line:84% You're very scientific making a fire in the man. 00:06:13.090 --> 00:06:16.510 align:middle line:90% As in, why don't you warm me up? 00:06:16.510 --> 00:06:22.910 align:middle line:84% Be the object of my affliction, which is that I am cold. 00:06:22.910 --> 00:06:25.840 align:middle line:84% Which is that I have worked a long time at being alone, 00:06:25.840 --> 00:06:29.920 align:middle line:84% never knowing the live likes of you. 00:06:29.920 --> 00:06:35.530 align:middle line:84% And the patient is sleeping, and the doctors go home. 00:06:35.530 --> 00:06:37.510 align:middle line:84% It's the end of the tale, the end 00:06:37.510 --> 00:06:39.910 align:middle line:84% of the pretense that someone will fix you-- 00:06:39.910 --> 00:06:42.850 align:middle line:90% all you have to do is lie down. 00:06:42.850 --> 00:06:46.600 align:middle line:90% Listen, this is the story. 00:06:46.600 --> 00:06:50.290 align:middle line:84% Your breath on the fire in the dead man's chest. 00:06:50.290 --> 00:06:52.840 align:middle line:90% The fire in their big as a fist. 00:06:52.840 --> 00:06:55.690 align:middle line:84% You're so very cool watching it stretch 00:06:55.690 --> 00:06:57.970 align:middle line:90% up and up to your frozen cheek. 00:06:57.970 --> 00:07:01.990 align:middle line:84% Such a fascination, such an experiment, until his eyes 00:07:01.990 --> 00:07:04.120 align:middle line:90% flick open and veer into yours. 00:07:04.120 --> 00:07:06.070 align:middle line:84% And the void in the middle of the chest 00:07:06.070 --> 00:07:11.710 align:middle line:84% ignites, and the thrill of flame goes coursing through." 00:07:11.710 --> 00:07:13.500 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:07:13.500 --> 00:07:14.000 align:middle line:90%