WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.790 align:middle line:90%


00:00:00.790 --> 00:00:04.960 align:middle line:84%
And there is a
story, an epilogue,

00:00:04.960 --> 00:00:07.630 align:middle line:84%
because when I sent my
mother Silent Dancing,

00:00:07.630 --> 00:00:11.650 align:middle line:84%
she said, you don't remember
anything right, do you?

00:00:11.650 --> 00:00:16.059 align:middle line:84%
Because since my father died,
she sanitized our history,

00:00:16.059 --> 00:00:20.800 align:middle line:84%
and she only remembers him as
this beautiful man in uniform,

00:00:20.800 --> 00:00:26.050 align:middle line:84%
and she does not remember
this happening the way

00:00:26.050 --> 00:00:28.750 align:middle line:84%
it did-- this, my
falling into the fire.

00:00:28.750 --> 00:00:31.000 align:middle line:84%
She says that,
actually, what I did

00:00:31.000 --> 00:00:34.870 align:middle line:84%
was that I took a very expensive
dictionary that my father had

00:00:34.870 --> 00:00:38.440 align:middle line:84%
brought home and dragged it out
to the fire and thrown it in,

00:00:38.440 --> 00:00:42.760 align:middle line:84%
and myself nearly with
it to get back at him.

00:00:42.760 --> 00:00:46.510 align:middle line:84%
And that if I
remember anything hot,

00:00:46.510 --> 00:00:48.520 align:middle line:84%
it was my behind
from the spanking

00:00:48.520 --> 00:00:51.820 align:middle line:90%
I got for that what happened.

00:00:51.820 --> 00:00:54.310 align:middle line:84%
And so I put that at the
end of Silent Dancing

00:00:54.310 --> 00:00:57.730 align:middle line:90%
as a sort of reconciliation.

00:00:57.730 --> 00:01:00.130 align:middle line:84%
I still think I'm
right, and I told her

00:01:00.130 --> 00:01:02.890 align:middle line:84%
that she has to write
her own book if she wants

00:01:02.890 --> 00:01:06.190 align:middle line:90%
to tell her side of the story.

00:01:06.190 --> 00:01:11.590 align:middle line:84%
Now, the next poem was the one
that Alison put in the flyer,

00:01:11.590 --> 00:01:14.050 align:middle line:90%
and it's about Fidel Castro.

00:01:14.050 --> 00:01:17.770 align:middle line:84%
I wrote it recently because
the man has not aged well.

00:01:17.770 --> 00:01:21.170 align:middle line:84%
He used to be a
beautiful young man,

00:01:21.170 --> 00:01:26.620 align:middle line:84%
and when he first
took over Cuba,

00:01:26.620 --> 00:01:28.390 align:middle line:84%
all the women in
Puerto Rico thought

00:01:28.390 --> 00:01:30.130 align:middle line:90%
he was like a movie idol.

00:01:30.130 --> 00:01:34.240 align:middle line:84%
You know, he was underneath
all that hairy face,

00:01:34.240 --> 00:01:36.430 align:middle line:90%
he was like Che.

00:01:36.430 --> 00:01:37.720 align:middle line:90%
Che was gorgeous.

00:01:37.720 --> 00:01:42.730 align:middle line:84%
And so this is a poem
about what I remembered.

00:01:42.730 --> 00:01:46.870 align:middle line:84%
The people in Puerto Rico
wanted Castro to take over Cuba

00:01:46.870 --> 00:01:48.430 align:middle line:90%
because they hated Batista.

00:01:48.430 --> 00:01:51.370 align:middle line:84%
Batista was a
corrupt, nasty man--

00:01:51.370 --> 00:01:52.930 align:middle line:90%
so they thought.

00:01:52.930 --> 00:01:57.340 align:middle line:84%
And then it wasn't long after
that all the new atrocities

00:01:57.340 --> 00:02:01.640 align:middle line:84%
started happening, and
it became a sad thing.

00:02:01.640 --> 00:02:03.550 align:middle line:84%
But anyway, it's
just a little poem,

00:02:03.550 --> 00:02:10.240 align:middle line:84%
but once again world conflict
or war comes into my life,

00:02:10.240 --> 00:02:13.210 align:middle line:84%
and Cuba didn't stop
coming into my life

00:02:13.210 --> 00:02:16.810 align:middle line:84%
because my father disappeared
on a ship for six months

00:02:16.810 --> 00:02:21.100 align:middle line:84%
during the Cuban Missile
Crisis, and so it has

00:02:21.100 --> 00:02:23.020 align:middle line:90%
played a big part in my life.

00:02:23.020 --> 00:02:27.310 align:middle line:84%
It's called "A Legion
of Dark Angels."

00:02:27.310 --> 00:02:30.400 align:middle line:84%
They came down from
the Sierra Maestra,

00:02:30.400 --> 00:02:33.490 align:middle line:84%
from its dizzying
heights wearing

00:02:33.490 --> 00:02:37.600 align:middle line:84%
the green of the forest
shouting prophecy.

00:02:37.600 --> 00:02:39.820 align:middle line:90%
Those dusty dominions.

00:02:39.820 --> 00:02:44.230 align:middle line:84%
Those archangels in full
armor nearly floating

00:02:44.230 --> 00:02:46.660 align:middle line:90%
through the ecstatic crowd.

00:02:46.660 --> 00:02:49.810 align:middle line:84%
Their bearded
leader sad and proud

00:02:49.810 --> 00:02:55.060 align:middle line:84%
as the rejected Messiah
finally entering his Jerusalem.

00:02:55.060 --> 00:02:58.570 align:middle line:84%
Called in from play to
witness Cuba's liberation

00:02:58.570 --> 00:03:01.750 align:middle line:84%
on our grainy TV
screen, we heard

00:03:01.750 --> 00:03:04.060 align:middle line:84%
our father quote
a poem in Spanish

00:03:04.060 --> 00:03:06.310 align:middle line:90%
he remembered from school.

00:03:06.310 --> 00:03:10.420 align:middle line:84%
A line about Puerto Rico
and Cuba being "de la misma

00:03:10.420 --> 00:03:13.090 align:middle line:90%
ave, las dos alas."

00:03:13.090 --> 00:03:16.180 align:middle line:90%
Of the same bird, its two wings.

00:03:16.180 --> 00:03:18.220 align:middle line:84%
And because he
had been to Havana

00:03:18.220 --> 00:03:20.890 align:middle line:84%
and had called it
Batista's whore,

00:03:20.890 --> 00:03:24.190 align:middle line:84%
he said, God bless
Fidel, instructing

00:03:24.190 --> 00:03:26.920 align:middle line:90%
us to look upon a hero's face.

00:03:26.920 --> 00:03:31.210 align:middle line:84%
And mother, crying softly for
the sons and the brothers who

00:03:31.210 --> 00:03:36.500 align:middle line:84%
had not returned, kept
saying, Amen, Amen.

00:03:36.500 --> 00:03:37.000 align:middle line:90%