WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.896 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.896 --> 00:00:05.200 align:middle line:84% So a poem I wrote a couple of year ago-- 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:09.390 align:middle line:84% this is in two parts, one of which takes place in Kent 00:00:09.390 --> 00:00:15.390 align:middle line:84% in England and the other takes place in Monterey, California. 00:00:15.390 --> 00:00:19.980 align:middle line:84% When I went back to England last couple of years ago, 00:00:19.980 --> 00:00:22.080 align:middle line:84% this aunt who'd done a good deal of bringing up 00:00:22.080 --> 00:00:25.480 align:middle line:84% of me-- that's an awkward phrase-- who brought me up 00:00:25.480 --> 00:00:27.810 align:middle line:90% seemed very frail. 00:00:27.810 --> 00:00:32.009 align:middle line:84% And the first part is sitting in her garden. 00:00:32.009 --> 00:00:37.680 align:middle line:84% And when I came back to this country, 00:00:37.680 --> 00:00:42.360 align:middle line:84% just before I went to a folk music festival in Monterey, 00:00:42.360 --> 00:00:45.470 align:middle line:84% I heard that she'd had a massive heart attack. 00:00:45.470 --> 00:00:51.550 align:middle line:84% And so I naturally expected that she would die as a result. 00:00:51.550 --> 00:00:57.610 align:middle line:84% And the second part is me thinking about this. 00:00:57.610 --> 00:00:58.690 align:middle line:90% Actually, she didn't die. 00:00:58.690 --> 00:01:01.438 align:middle line:84% And she is still alive, and she recovered remarkably. 00:01:01.438 --> 00:01:03.730 align:middle line:84% So in the sense, I've written an elegy for somebody who 00:01:03.730 --> 00:01:05.900 align:middle line:90% didn't die, which is very nice. 00:01:05.900 --> 00:01:06.860 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:06.860 --> 00:01:09.850 align:middle line:84% And the last few lines of the poem 00:01:09.850 --> 00:01:12.850 align:middle line:84% come from a direct quotation from a poem 00:01:12.850 --> 00:01:16.180 align:middle line:84% by Sir Walter Raleigh to Queen Elizabeth. 00:01:16.180 --> 00:01:17.320 align:middle line:90% He seems to be-- 00:01:17.320 --> 00:01:20.410 align:middle line:84% "The Ocean to Cynthia", the poem is called. 00:01:20.410 --> 00:01:22.060 align:middle line:84% And he seems to be characterizing 00:01:22.060 --> 00:01:26.080 align:middle line:84% Elizabeth I as a kind of a principle of fertility. 00:01:26.080 --> 00:01:29.170 align:middle line:84% Well, I thought if Raleigh could characterize 00:01:29.170 --> 00:01:32.170 align:middle line:84% Elizabeth I of all people as a principle of fertility, 00:01:32.170 --> 00:01:35.875 align:middle line:84% then I could use Raleigh's lines about my aunt. 00:01:35.875 --> 00:01:37.180 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:37.180 --> 00:01:40.210 align:middle line:90% They're beautiful lines. 00:01:40.210 --> 00:01:43.060 align:middle line:84% The poem is called "Breaking Ground." 00:01:43.060 --> 00:01:44.080 align:middle line:90% Part 1, Kent. 00:01:44.080 --> 00:01:48.270 align:middle line:90% 00:01:48.270 --> 00:01:54.300 align:middle line:84% "Lank potato, darkening cabbage, tattered raspberry cadence, 00:01:54.300 --> 00:02:00.000 align:middle line:84% but the flower beds so crammed there is no room for weeds. 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:03.690 align:middle line:90% Fiercely aflame all August. 00:02:03.690 --> 00:02:07.230 align:middle line:84% When I sniff at the bergamot, the fruity sage smell 00:02:07.230 --> 00:02:08.640 align:middle line:90% is like a flower sweating. 00:02:08.640 --> 00:02:11.380 align:middle line:90% 00:02:11.380 --> 00:02:15.250 align:middle line:84% She's too old now to dig, too old to move that barrel 00:02:15.250 --> 00:02:17.350 align:middle line:90% of cuttings by the shed. 00:02:17.350 --> 00:02:18.820 align:middle line:90% Some nephew can move it. 00:02:18.820 --> 00:02:21.330 align:middle line:90% 00:02:21.330 --> 00:02:24.750 align:middle line:84% Barrel of cuttings of grass is not yet 00:02:24.750 --> 00:02:27.600 align:middle line:84% hay, fresh green of redundant branch, 00:02:27.600 --> 00:02:31.680 align:middle line:84% and nasturtium only rusted a little at edges of hot yellow. 00:02:31.680 --> 00:02:34.660 align:middle line:90% 00:02:34.660 --> 00:02:38.590 align:middle line:84% Going down to Earth, that's what I can't accept. 00:02:38.590 --> 00:02:43.180 align:middle line:84% Her kind hand, her gray eyes, her voice, 00:02:43.180 --> 00:02:46.450 align:middle line:84% intonations I've known all my life. 00:02:46.450 --> 00:02:51.370 align:middle line:84% To be lost, forgotten in an indiscriminate mulch, 00:02:51.370 --> 00:02:53.440 align:middle line:90% a humus of no color." 00:02:53.440 --> 00:02:57.960 align:middle line:90% 00:02:57.960 --> 00:02:59.230 align:middle line:90% Two-- Monterey. 00:02:59.230 --> 00:03:02.590 align:middle line:90% 00:03:02.590 --> 00:03:08.350 align:middle line:84% "Looking down on the stage from side bleachers, my mind heavy. 00:03:08.350 --> 00:03:11.740 align:middle line:84% October and high fog, Joan Baez singing, 00:03:11.740 --> 00:03:17.270 align:middle line:84% Let it Be, during which a break comes in the sky. 00:03:17.270 --> 00:03:20.840 align:middle line:84% And in the crowd below, detail after detail 00:03:20.840 --> 00:03:26.390 align:middle line:84% comes alive a repeated movement of stretching arms, people all 00:03:26.390 --> 00:03:30.220 align:middle line:84% over taking off their coats and shirts. 00:03:30.220 --> 00:03:34.180 align:middle line:84% Patches of flesh color start out from the khaki 00:03:34.180 --> 00:03:37.030 align:middle line:90% and gray background. 00:03:37.030 --> 00:03:40.870 align:middle line:84% What flashes of warm skin, what a blooming 00:03:40.870 --> 00:03:46.640 align:middle line:84% of body, firm and everlasting petals. 00:03:46.640 --> 00:03:48.680 align:middle line:90% Let it be. 00:03:48.680 --> 00:03:51.320 align:middle line:84% It comes to me at last that when she dies, 00:03:51.320 --> 00:03:56.240 align:middle line:84% she loses, indeed, that sweet character, loses all self 00:03:56.240 --> 00:03:58.940 align:middle line:90% and is dispersed. 00:03:58.940 --> 00:04:04.250 align:middle line:84% But dispersal means spreading abroad. 00:04:04.250 --> 00:04:06.860 align:middle line:84% She is not still contained in the one person. 00:04:06.860 --> 00:04:12.850 align:middle line:84% She is distributed through fair warm flesh of strangers. 00:04:12.850 --> 00:04:18.160 align:middle line:84% Some have her touch, some her eyes, some her voice, never 00:04:18.160 --> 00:04:23.080 align:middle line:84% to be forgotten, renewed again and again throughout one 00:04:23.080 --> 00:04:27.690 align:middle line:84% great garden which is always here. 00:04:27.690 --> 00:04:29.880 align:middle line:90% She is gone. 00:04:29.880 --> 00:04:32.040 align:middle line:90% She is lost. 00:04:32.040 --> 00:04:33.951 align:middle line:90% She is found. 00:04:33.951 --> 00:04:36.440 align:middle line:90% She is ever fair." 00:04:36.440 --> 00:04:41.000 align:middle line:90%