WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.080 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.080 --> 00:00:04.500 align:middle line:84% I spent all my summers in New Hampshire on a farm 00:00:04.500 --> 00:00:06.480 align:middle line:84% with my grandfather and grandmother, 00:00:06.480 --> 00:00:09.990 align:middle line:84% hanging in the afternoon, not working very hard 00:00:09.990 --> 00:00:13.635 align:middle line:84% and working, reading, and trying to write poems in the morning. 00:00:13.635 --> 00:00:15.240 align:middle line:90% This is when I was a kid. 00:00:15.240 --> 00:00:16.470 align:middle line:90% And I really loved that. 00:00:16.470 --> 00:00:17.820 align:middle line:84% I've written about it over and over again. 00:00:17.820 --> 00:00:19.950 align:middle line:84% And I'd probably write about it the rest of my life, I suppose. 00:00:19.950 --> 00:00:21.900 align:middle line:84% But I have a poem here called "The Table." 00:00:21.900 --> 00:00:25.320 align:middle line:84% There was an old table back in the bedroom, a big bedroom. 00:00:25.320 --> 00:00:27.570 align:middle line:84% I used to used to work at that table a lot 00:00:27.570 --> 00:00:30.630 align:middle line:84% in the daytime, a big, brown, old table. 00:00:30.630 --> 00:00:33.810 align:middle line:90% And the corners were-- 00:00:33.810 --> 00:00:34.560 align:middle line:90% had been square. 00:00:34.560 --> 00:00:37.020 align:middle line:84% But when my mother was about three years old, 00:00:37.020 --> 00:00:40.820 align:middle line:84% and she was at the farm, my crazy hermit cousin, Freeman, 00:00:40.820 --> 00:00:42.540 align:middle line:84% had cut them off and rounded them 00:00:42.540 --> 00:00:45.270 align:middle line:84% so a little girl wouldn't hit her head on the corner. 00:00:45.270 --> 00:00:48.700 align:middle line:84% I've got it in Ann Arbor now, and write on it. 00:00:48.700 --> 00:00:51.810 align:middle line:90% But this is "The Table." 00:00:51.810 --> 00:00:54.870 align:middle line:84% "Walking back to the farm from the depot, 00:00:54.870 --> 00:00:58.020 align:middle line:84% Riley slapped flies with his tail. 00:00:58.020 --> 00:00:59.640 align:middle line:90% Twilight. 00:00:59.640 --> 00:01:03.960 align:middle line:84% Cricket scraped in the green standing hay by the road. 00:01:03.960 --> 00:01:06.660 align:middle line:84% The voice of my grandfather spoke 00:01:06.660 --> 00:01:08.940 align:middle line:90% through a motion of gnats. 00:01:08.940 --> 00:01:10.950 align:middle line:90% I held his hand. 00:01:10.950 --> 00:01:15.690 align:middle line:90% I entered the sway of a horse. 00:01:15.690 --> 00:01:19.860 align:middle line:84% At the brown table, I propped books on each other. 00:01:19.860 --> 00:01:23.190 align:middle line:84% All morning in the room my skin took into itself 00:01:23.190 --> 00:01:26.340 align:middle line:90% small discs of coolness. 00:01:26.340 --> 00:01:29.940 align:middle line:84% Then I walked in the cut hayfield by the barn, 00:01:29.940 --> 00:01:34.680 align:middle line:84% and lay alone in the little valley of noon heat, 00:01:34.680 --> 00:01:38.250 align:middle line:90% in the village of little sounds. 00:01:38.250 --> 00:01:42.750 align:middle line:84% Grasshoppers tickled my neck and I let them. 00:01:42.750 --> 00:01:48.540 align:middle line:84% I turned into the other world that lives in the air. 00:01:48.540 --> 00:01:53.250 align:middle line:90% Clouds passed like moats. 00:01:53.250 --> 00:01:56.520 align:middle line:84% My grandfather clanked up the road on his mowing machine, 00:01:56.520 --> 00:01:59.520 align:middle line:90% behind Riley, dark with sweat. 00:01:59.520 --> 00:02:02.490 align:middle line:84% I ran to the barn and carried a bucket of water 00:02:02.490 --> 00:02:06.030 align:middle line:84% to the loose jaws working in the dark stall. 00:02:06.030 --> 00:02:09.509 align:middle line:90% For lunch, I sliced an onion. 00:02:09.509 --> 00:02:12.300 align:middle line:84% Then we raked hay into mounds, and my grandfather 00:02:12.300 --> 00:02:15.270 align:middle line:84% pitched it up where I tucked it in place on the hayrack. 00:02:15.270 --> 00:02:17.770 align:middle line:90% My skin dried in the sun. 00:02:17.770 --> 00:02:20.910 align:middle line:90% Wind caught me in clover. 00:02:20.910 --> 00:02:24.180 align:middle line:84% The slow ride back to the barn, I 00:02:24.180 --> 00:02:26.940 align:middle line:84% dangled legs over split-pole rails 00:02:26.940 --> 00:02:29.370 align:middle line:84% while my grandfather talked forever 00:02:29.370 --> 00:02:32.130 align:middle line:84% in a voice that wrapped me around with love 00:02:32.130 --> 00:02:34.830 align:middle line:90% that asked for nothing. 00:02:34.830 --> 00:02:37.530 align:middle line:84% In my room, I drank well-water that 00:02:37.530 --> 00:02:41.970 align:middle line:84% whitened the sides of a tumbler, and coolness gathered 00:02:41.970 --> 00:02:46.770 align:middle line:90% like dark inside my stomach. 00:02:46.770 --> 00:02:52.200 align:middle line:84% This morning, I walk to the shaded bedroom and lean 00:02:52.200 --> 00:02:55.650 align:middle line:90% on the drop-leaf table. 00:02:55.650 --> 00:03:01.080 align:middle line:84% The table hums a song to itself, without sense, 00:03:01.080 --> 00:03:05.760 align:middle line:84% and I hear the voice of the heaving ribs of Riley, 00:03:05.760 --> 00:03:09.750 align:middle line:84% and grasshoppers haying the fields of the air." 00:03:09.750 --> 00:03:14.340 align:middle line:90% 00:03:14.340 --> 00:03:16.180 align:middle line:84% That was before I took it back to Michigan. 00:03:16.180 --> 00:03:19.050 align:middle line:84% It doesn't sing in Michigan, but it's all right. 00:03:19.050 --> 00:03:20.960 align:middle line:90% I like it.