WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.840 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.840 --> 00:00:01.650 align:middle line:90% I'll give you-- 00:00:01.650 --> 00:00:04.059 align:middle line:84% I'll read you a poem which I wrote, 00:00:04.059 --> 00:00:07.710 align:middle line:84% which is a little more joyous about my daughter who's 00:00:07.710 --> 00:00:10.470 align:middle line:90% almost a year old. 00:00:10.470 --> 00:00:15.060 align:middle line:84% But right now I better read this poem on Coltrane, 00:00:15.060 --> 00:00:17.820 align:middle line:84% because I wouldn't want to read it later. 00:00:17.820 --> 00:00:20.890 align:middle line:90% 00:00:20.890 --> 00:00:25.390 align:middle line:84% Mostly of you know who John Coltrane is, was, is. 00:00:25.390 --> 00:00:26.800 align:middle line:90% He's a great man. 00:00:26.800 --> 00:00:28.490 align:middle line:90% He's a friend of mine. 00:00:28.490 --> 00:00:30.220 align:middle line:90% I wrote the poem before he died. 00:00:30.220 --> 00:00:32.630 align:middle line:90% I was very frightened by it. 00:00:32.630 --> 00:00:35.260 align:middle line:84% And I've been listening to him play all night 4 or 5 o'clock 00:00:35.260 --> 00:00:37.302 align:middle line:84% in the morning at The Half Note in New York City. 00:00:37.302 --> 00:00:40.330 align:middle line:90% 00:00:40.330 --> 00:00:44.230 align:middle line:90% Coltrane died in 1967 in July. 00:00:44.230 --> 00:00:47.320 align:middle line:84% And I was out of the country, I was in Mexico. 00:00:47.320 --> 00:00:51.930 align:middle line:84% When I came back from Mexico, I landed in San Antonio. 00:00:51.930 --> 00:00:53.680 align:middle line:84% And he had to get off to plane because you 00:00:53.680 --> 00:00:56.680 align:middle line:90% had to clear customs. 00:00:56.680 --> 00:00:59.500 align:middle line:84% And I walk through this door in about 120 degree heat 00:00:59.500 --> 00:01:06.610 align:middle line:84% carrying my boy, and I saw a picture of Lyndon Johnson, 00:01:06.610 --> 00:01:11.052 align:middle line:84% and a confederate flag, and a flag of Texas, 00:01:11.052 --> 00:01:12.010 align:middle line:90% and I said, "I'm home." 00:01:12.010 --> 00:01:15.070 align:middle line:90% 00:01:15.070 --> 00:01:16.780 align:middle line:84% In a plane, which was a brand of airline 00:01:16.780 --> 00:01:20.650 align:middle line:84% plane with all those technicolor suits girls put on, 00:01:20.650 --> 00:01:22.150 align:middle line:90% I went to Dallas. 00:01:22.150 --> 00:01:26.553 align:middle line:84% I got off a plane again because it was too hot to stay in it, 00:01:26.553 --> 00:01:28.720 align:middle line:84% and I walked around the airport and I saw these guys 00:01:28.720 --> 00:01:34.180 align:middle line:84% with shotguns on their shoulders, about eight of them. 00:01:34.180 --> 00:01:38.650 align:middle line:84% And I got in the plane again, next up Kansas City. 00:01:38.650 --> 00:01:41.320 align:middle line:84% Stopped in Kansas City and as the plane was landing, 00:01:41.320 --> 00:01:42.400 align:middle line:90% one of the tires blew. 00:01:42.400 --> 00:01:46.160 align:middle line:90% 00:01:46.160 --> 00:01:49.160 align:middle line:84% Dang, one guy came on the intercom and said, 00:01:49.160 --> 00:01:52.520 align:middle line:84% "no problem, I'll have it fixed in few minutes." 00:01:52.520 --> 00:01:54.320 align:middle line:84% We waited a while, got on a plane, 00:01:54.320 --> 00:01:57.530 align:middle line:84% went to Minneapolis, which is my destination. 00:01:57.530 --> 00:02:01.860 align:middle line:84% I got off the plane having had this arduous trip, 00:02:01.860 --> 00:02:03.710 align:middle line:84% and there was a great big poster of Wallace. 00:02:03.710 --> 00:02:06.107 align:middle line:90% 00:02:06.107 --> 00:02:07.940 align:middle line:84% I said to myself, man, I just couldn't do it 00:02:07.940 --> 00:02:08.857 align:middle line:90% any better if I tried. 00:02:08.857 --> 00:02:12.090 align:middle line:90% 00:02:12.090 --> 00:02:13.610 align:middle line:90% And I said I'm home. 00:02:13.610 --> 00:02:16.760 align:middle line:90% 00:02:16.760 --> 00:02:19.310 align:middle line:84% And I was deeply moved when I was in Mexico because I went 00:02:19.310 --> 00:02:22.485 align:middle line:84% to the anthropological museum on a Sunday, 00:02:22.485 --> 00:02:24.110 align:middle line:84% and many of the tourists who were there 00:02:24.110 --> 00:02:28.190 align:middle line:84% warned me about bringing my son to this place where 00:02:28.190 --> 00:02:32.895 align:middle line:84% all the peasants were, in this park. 00:02:32.895 --> 00:02:34.770 align:middle line:84% Here's what they call, I think, one peso day. 00:02:34.770 --> 00:02:35.982 align:middle line:90% I mean, it was two peso day. 00:02:35.982 --> 00:02:37.440 align:middle line:84% Of course, I felt very comfortable. 00:02:37.440 --> 00:02:40.680 align:middle line:84% You know, women came up, we were bored and played with them 00:02:40.680 --> 00:02:42.200 align:middle line:90% and talked to him. 00:02:42.200 --> 00:02:44.420 align:middle line:90% I thought it was very natural. 00:02:44.420 --> 00:02:46.440 align:middle line:84% I was also struck in looking at these paintings, 00:02:46.440 --> 00:02:48.648 align:middle line:84% many of the things which were represented on the wall 00:02:48.648 --> 00:02:51.250 align:middle line:84% looked very much like some of my ancestors, 00:02:51.250 --> 00:02:53.130 align:middle line:90% so I felt very much at home. 00:02:53.130 --> 00:02:55.410 align:middle line:84% Then I came back to where I was born, 00:02:55.410 --> 00:02:56.760 align:middle line:90% and didn't feel home at all. 00:02:56.760 --> 00:02:59.530 align:middle line:90% 00:02:59.530 --> 00:03:02.860 align:middle line:84% Well, Coltrane was a great man and he 00:03:02.860 --> 00:03:05.800 align:middle line:90% gave a great deal of his life. 00:03:05.800 --> 00:03:09.280 align:middle line:84% If you've heard his music you know that. 00:03:09.280 --> 00:03:11.401 align:middle line:84% Played an album called A Love Supreme. 00:03:11.401 --> 00:03:14.490 align:middle line:90% 00:03:14.490 --> 00:03:26.030 align:middle line:84% And this poem recalls Coltrane, "Dear John, Dear Coltrane." 00:03:26.030 --> 00:03:32.810 align:middle line:84% "A love supreme, a love supreme, a love supreme, a love supreme, 00:03:32.810 --> 00:03:41.120 align:middle line:84% a love supreme, a love supreme, a love supreme, a love supreme. 00:03:41.120 --> 00:03:43.970 align:middle line:84% Sex, fingers, toes in the marketplace, 00:03:43.970 --> 00:03:45.800 align:middle line:84% near your father's church in Hamlet, 00:03:45.800 --> 00:03:49.910 align:middle line:84% North Carolina, witness to this love in this calm fallow 00:03:49.910 --> 00:03:51.260 align:middle line:90% of these minds. 00:03:51.260 --> 00:03:54.410 align:middle line:84% There is no substitute for pain, genitals gone or going, 00:03:54.410 --> 00:03:57.680 align:middle line:84% seed burned out, you tucked the roots in the Earth, 00:03:57.680 --> 00:04:01.430 align:middle line:84% turned back and move by river through the swamps singing, 00:04:01.430 --> 00:04:05.660 align:middle line:90% a love supreme, a love supreme. 00:04:05.660 --> 00:04:07.550 align:middle line:90% What does it all mean? 00:04:07.550 --> 00:04:11.180 align:middle line:84% Loss so great each Black woman expects your failure in mute 00:04:11.180 --> 00:04:13.760 align:middle line:90% change, the seed gone. 00:04:13.760 --> 00:04:16.430 align:middle line:84% You plod up into the electric city, your song now crystal 00:04:16.430 --> 00:04:19.970 align:middle line:84% and the blues, you pick up the horn with some will and blow 00:04:19.970 --> 00:04:21.829 align:middle line:90% into the freezing night. 00:04:21.829 --> 00:04:26.210 align:middle line:90% A love supreme, a love supreme. 00:04:26.210 --> 00:04:29.090 align:middle line:84% Dawn comes and you cook up the thick sin between impotence 00:04:29.090 --> 00:04:33.470 align:middle line:84% and death, fuel the tenor sax, cannibal heart, genitals, 00:04:33.470 --> 00:04:36.380 align:middle line:90% and sweat that makes you clean. 00:04:36.380 --> 00:04:41.030 align:middle line:90% A love supreme, a love supreme. 00:04:41.030 --> 00:04:42.282 align:middle line:90% Why you so Black, cause I am. 00:04:42.282 --> 00:04:43.490 align:middle line:90% Why you so funky, cause I am. 00:04:43.490 --> 00:04:44.698 align:middle line:90% Why you so Black, cause I am. 00:04:44.698 --> 00:04:45.980 align:middle line:90% Why you so sweet, cause I am. 00:04:45.980 --> 00:04:47.660 align:middle line:90% Why you so Black, cause I am. 00:04:47.660 --> 00:04:51.840 align:middle line:90% A love supreme, a love supreme. 00:04:51.840 --> 00:04:55.320 align:middle line:84% So sick you couldn't play Naima, so flat 00:04:55.320 --> 00:04:58.860 align:middle line:84% we ached for song you concealed with your own blood. 00:04:58.860 --> 00:05:01.590 align:middle line:84% Your diseased liver gave out its purity. 00:05:01.590 --> 00:05:06.600 align:middle line:84% The inflated heart pumps out the tender kiss, tender love. 00:05:06.600 --> 00:05:13.970 align:middle line:84% A love supreme, love supreme, a love supreme, a love supreme." 00:05:13.970 --> 00:05:17.000 align:middle line:90%