WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.970 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.970 --> 00:00:05.000 align:middle line:90% This poem's called "A Miracle." 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:07.160 align:middle line:84% And I think there are miracles in my life that 00:00:07.160 --> 00:00:10.550 align:middle line:84% aren't miracles in your life because I grew up in a house 00:00:10.550 --> 00:00:13.925 align:middle line:90% without a telephone. 00:00:13.925 --> 00:00:16.280 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE, LAUGHTER] 00:00:16.280 --> 00:00:22.102 align:middle line:84% And yes, it was a kind of miraculous silence. 00:00:22.102 --> 00:00:23.630 align:middle line:84% And when people wanted something, 00:00:23.630 --> 00:00:25.100 align:middle line:90% they just broke the door open-- 00:00:25.100 --> 00:00:27.920 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] --and took it. 00:00:27.920 --> 00:00:30.470 align:middle line:90% It beats the phone all to hell. 00:00:30.470 --> 00:00:33.980 align:middle line:84% Anyway, one of the miracles in the poem 00:00:33.980 --> 00:00:37.940 align:middle line:84% is the ability of people to cross great continents 00:00:37.940 --> 00:00:39.140 align:middle line:90% with their telephones. 00:00:39.140 --> 00:00:42.020 align:middle line:84% There are other miracles in the poem. 00:00:42.020 --> 00:00:43.670 align:middle line:84% There's a miracle I ever finished it. 00:00:43.670 --> 00:00:45.053 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] 00:00:45.053 --> 00:00:47.360 align:middle line:90% 00:00:47.360 --> 00:00:50.410 align:middle line:84% There's the miracle that The New Yorker bought it. 00:00:50.410 --> 00:00:52.310 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:52.310 --> 00:00:55.940 align:middle line:84% And then I got a lobotomy with the $482 they gave me. 00:00:55.940 --> 00:00:57.860 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:57.860 --> 00:01:01.520 align:middle line:84% And now, I'm rarely sad and always stupid, yeah. 00:01:01.520 --> 00:01:03.918 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:03.918 --> 00:01:06.335 align:middle line:84% And the miracle that being stupid, I seem to write better. 00:01:06.335 --> 00:01:08.720 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:08.720 --> 00:01:12.815 align:middle line:84% I'm a better father, a better husband, better Philip. 00:01:12.815 --> 00:01:14.210 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:14.210 --> 00:01:15.020 align:middle line:90% Oh, cut it out. 00:01:15.020 --> 00:01:16.220 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:16.220 --> 00:01:18.230 align:middle line:90% "The Miracle." 00:01:18.230 --> 00:01:20.300 align:middle line:84% I happen to be-- and this is something 00:01:20.300 --> 00:01:23.293 align:middle line:84% I might as well tell you, because it's an essential fact 00:01:23.293 --> 00:01:23.960 align:middle line:90% in another poem. 00:01:23.960 --> 00:01:26.240 align:middle line:84% I happen to be a twin brother-- identical twin. 00:01:26.240 --> 00:01:29.120 align:middle line:84% And it's a key to one of the other poems I'm going to read. 00:01:29.120 --> 00:01:32.390 align:middle line:84% But it's sort of part of this poem too. 00:01:32.390 --> 00:01:37.610 align:middle line:84% "A man staring into the fire sees his dead brother sleeping. 00:01:37.610 --> 00:01:39.530 align:middle line:84% The falling flames go yellow and red. 00:01:39.530 --> 00:01:41.240 align:middle line:90% But it is him-- 00:01:41.240 --> 00:01:43.340 align:middle line:90% unmistakable. 00:01:43.340 --> 00:01:46.670 align:middle line:84% He goes to the phone and calls his mother. 00:01:46.670 --> 00:01:49.070 align:middle line:90% Howard is asleep, he tells her. 00:01:49.070 --> 00:01:52.430 align:middle line:90% Yes, she says, Howard is asleep. 00:01:52.430 --> 00:01:54.500 align:middle line:90% She doesn't cry. 00:01:54.500 --> 00:01:58.280 align:middle line:84% In her Los Angeles apartment with its small color TV humming 00:01:58.280 --> 00:02:03.020 align:middle line:84% now unobserved, she sees Howard walking alone beneath the waves 00:02:03.020 --> 00:02:06.260 align:middle line:90% of an ocean she cannot name. 00:02:06.260 --> 00:02:11.060 align:middle line:84% Howard is asleep, she says to the drapes drawn on the night. 00:02:11.060 --> 00:02:14.150 align:middle line:84% That night, she dreams a house alive with flames-- 00:02:14.150 --> 00:02:17.840 align:middle line:84% their old house-- and her son sleeping peacefully 00:02:17.840 --> 00:02:20.480 align:middle line:90% in the kingdom of agony. 00:02:20.480 --> 00:02:23.060 align:middle line:84% She awakens near morning, the dream 00:02:23.060 --> 00:02:25.730 align:middle line:84% more real than the clock luminous beside her, 00:02:25.730 --> 00:02:29.990 align:middle line:84% or the gray light rising slowly above the huddled town. 00:02:29.990 --> 00:02:33.800 align:middle line:84% More real than the groan of the first car. 00:02:33.800 --> 00:02:38.780 align:middle line:84% She calls her son, who has risen for work and tells him, 00:02:38.780 --> 00:02:43.190 align:middle line:90% Howard is warm and at peace. 00:02:43.190 --> 00:02:47.390 align:middle line:84% He sees the crusted snows of March draining the cold light 00:02:47.390 --> 00:02:49.820 align:middle line:90% of a day already old. 00:02:49.820 --> 00:02:53.810 align:middle line:84% He sees himself unlocking the front door of his shop, 00:02:53.810 --> 00:02:57.110 align:middle line:84% letting the office help in, letting Eugene and Andy 00:02:57.110 --> 00:03:01.820 align:middle line:84% the grease men step before him out of the snow. 00:03:01.820 --> 00:03:06.530 align:middle line:84% When she hangs up, he looks out on the backyard-- 00:03:06.530 --> 00:03:11.870 align:middle line:84% the garbage cans collapsing like sacks of air, the fence holding 00:03:11.870 --> 00:03:15.080 align:middle line:90% a few gray sparrows. 00:03:15.080 --> 00:03:19.490 align:middle line:84% He looks out on the world he always sees and thinks, 00:03:19.490 --> 00:03:21.460 align:middle line:90% it's a miracle." 00:03:21.460 --> 00:03:24.095 align:middle line:90%