WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.640 align:middle line:90%


00:00:00.640 --> 00:00:04.970 align:middle line:84%
The next poem has a
unintended pun in the title.

00:00:04.970 --> 00:00:08.500 align:middle line:84%
It's called, 'The Night Blooming
Cereus' and that's not S-E-R

00:00:08.500 --> 00:00:12.550 align:middle line:84%
but C-E-R. It's a type of
plant that grows in the desert

00:00:12.550 --> 00:00:14.710 align:middle line:90%
and around many people's houses.

00:00:14.710 --> 00:00:18.580 align:middle line:84%
It's-- I don't know exactly
what it is botanically,

00:00:18.580 --> 00:00:21.910 align:middle line:84%
but it's a viny spiny sort of
thing that grows under mesquite

00:00:21.910 --> 00:00:22.810 align:middle line:90%
trees.

00:00:22.810 --> 00:00:27.480 align:middle line:84%
Looks like a whole bunch of
snakes with a thorns on it.

00:00:27.480 --> 00:00:29.520 align:middle line:84%
It has under the
ground a large tuber

00:00:29.520 --> 00:00:32.130 align:middle line:84%
which used to be used for
food, I've never eaten it,

00:00:32.130 --> 00:00:34.260 align:middle line:84%
but this is one of
the things in the poem

00:00:34.260 --> 00:00:37.390 align:middle line:90%
that you might not know about.

00:00:37.390 --> 00:00:41.230 align:middle line:90%
'The Night Blooming Cereus.

00:00:41.230 --> 00:00:45.430 align:middle line:84%
Cowboys and Indians found them
by smelling around at night,

00:00:45.430 --> 00:00:48.430 align:middle line:84%
because they grew
deep in thickets.

00:00:48.430 --> 00:00:53.740 align:middle line:84%
Ate the moon of a tuber,
like eating their own souls.

00:00:53.740 --> 00:00:56.260 align:middle line:84%
Our next door neighbor
who we hardly know

00:00:56.260 --> 00:00:59.440 align:middle line:84%
comes knocking late,
and we go fumbling over

00:00:59.440 --> 00:01:02.620 align:middle line:84%
stones around their
husband's old paintings

00:01:02.620 --> 00:01:06.490 align:middle line:84%
to see it detached from its
rotting room pole floating

00:01:06.490 --> 00:01:09.250 align:middle line:84%
in the flashlight
around the garden.

00:01:09.250 --> 00:01:11.350 align:middle line:84%
Spend the rest of
the night barefoot

00:01:11.350 --> 00:01:16.420 align:middle line:84%
on the warm patio telling jokes,
drinking their good whiskey.

00:01:16.420 --> 00:01:18.370 align:middle line:84%
My whole life is
a trance, I hope

00:01:18.370 --> 00:01:21.690 align:middle line:84%
to break from once
or twice a year.

00:01:21.690 --> 00:01:23.000 align:middle line:90%