WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.270 align:middle line:90% 00:00:03.270 --> 00:00:06.446 align:middle line:84% Well, now that I mention it, let me read my twin brother poem. 00:00:06.446 --> 00:00:08.640 align:middle line:84% Oh, wait, there's another poem I want to read first. 00:00:08.640 --> 00:00:10.973 align:middle line:84% The other day a guy came up to me-- a guy I like a lot-- 00:00:10.973 --> 00:00:13.410 align:middle line:84% and he said, you know, I saw a poem by you in a magazine, 00:00:13.410 --> 00:00:15.360 align:middle line:90% and I was so happy. 00:00:15.360 --> 00:00:16.530 align:middle line:90% What's happened to you? 00:00:16.530 --> 00:00:20.052 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] I said, you know. 00:00:20.052 --> 00:00:21.510 align:middle line:84% You know, I mean, you used to write 00:00:21.510 --> 00:00:24.120 align:middle line:84% those great depressing Jewish poems, you know. 00:00:24.120 --> 00:00:25.320 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:25.320 --> 00:00:26.790 align:middle line:90% You're not going to abandon us. 00:00:26.790 --> 00:00:29.280 align:middle line:84% We're all depressed, and you're finding happiness? 00:00:29.280 --> 00:00:32.520 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] I said, it's OK. 00:00:32.520 --> 00:00:33.090 align:middle line:90% It's OK. 00:00:33.090 --> 00:00:35.880 align:middle line:84% I'm really deeply thinking about suicide today. 00:00:35.880 --> 00:00:37.140 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:37.140 --> 00:00:41.655 align:middle line:84% And I'm only smiling because I can't figure out how to do it. 00:00:41.655 --> 00:00:43.830 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:43.830 --> 00:00:45.750 align:middle line:84% My right hand keeps grabbing my left hand, 00:00:45.750 --> 00:00:47.000 align:middle line:90% and my right hand's stronger. 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:49.980 align:middle line:84% [LAUGHS] Anyway, this was the poem that upset him 00:00:49.980 --> 00:00:51.135 align:middle line:90% so because it was happy. 00:00:51.135 --> 00:00:53.672 align:middle line:90% 00:00:53.672 --> 00:00:55.005 align:middle line:90% People don't want you to change. 00:00:55.005 --> 00:00:58.622 align:middle line:90% 00:00:58.622 --> 00:01:02.940 align:middle line:84% Or they do, but they don't tell you. 00:01:02.940 --> 00:01:03.720 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:03.720 --> 00:01:06.420 align:middle line:84% The only ones that tell you are the ones who are unhappy. 00:01:06.420 --> 00:01:10.320 align:middle line:90% This is called, The Gift. 00:01:10.320 --> 00:01:12.750 align:middle line:84% And it comes out of the fact that I spent my first 25 00:01:12.750 --> 00:01:15.810 align:middle line:90% years in the city of Detroit. 00:01:15.810 --> 00:01:17.520 align:middle line:90% And then I left. 00:01:17.520 --> 00:01:20.790 align:middle line:84% And there's no other part of the world, thank God, 00:01:20.790 --> 00:01:21.880 align:middle line:90% that looks like Detroit. 00:01:21.880 --> 00:01:22.380 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:22.380 --> 00:01:25.440 align:middle line:84% It didn't matter which direction you took, it was up. 00:01:25.440 --> 00:01:28.340 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] The Gift. 00:01:28.340 --> 00:01:32.810 align:middle line:84% Wheat fields the wind praised, and the great river freighted 00:01:32.810 --> 00:01:34.760 align:middle line:90% with long barges of logs. 00:01:34.760 --> 00:01:38.690 align:middle line:84% And then, on past the darkening fields, where suddenly a town 00:01:38.690 --> 00:01:39.650 align:middle line:90% sprouted-- 00:01:39.650 --> 00:01:43.040 align:middle line:84% tall silos, loading docks, and a long train 00:01:43.040 --> 00:01:45.530 align:middle line:90% chuffing toward the night. 00:01:45.530 --> 00:01:48.170 align:middle line:84% I went on farther and farther from home 00:01:48.170 --> 00:01:51.350 align:middle line:84% toward where the mountains lifted me slowly at first. 00:01:51.350 --> 00:01:54.680 align:middle line:84% Then, suddenly the dark steep climbs-- 00:01:54.680 --> 00:01:56.600 align:middle line:84% and here and there, a pair of eyes burning 00:01:56.600 --> 00:01:59.930 align:middle line:84% like tiny candles by the roadside. 00:01:59.930 --> 00:02:02.750 align:middle line:90% At last, dawn broke behind me. 00:02:02.750 --> 00:02:04.850 align:middle line:84% I pulled over and slept an hour or two 00:02:04.850 --> 00:02:09.680 align:middle line:84% and woke at great height, turning above the frozen Earth 00:02:09.680 --> 00:02:11.570 align:middle line:90% as though I were a bird-- 00:02:11.570 --> 00:02:15.680 align:middle line:84% or had woken from dreaming into dreaming. 00:02:15.680 --> 00:02:17.840 align:middle line:90% But this was me-- 00:02:17.840 --> 00:02:19.520 align:middle line:90% different now. 00:02:19.520 --> 00:02:20.330 align:middle line:90% Or so I thought. 00:02:20.330 --> 00:02:24.290 align:middle line:84% Still a man, still lonely, even at great height. 00:02:24.290 --> 00:02:26.480 align:middle line:90% But remembering it all-- 00:02:26.480 --> 00:02:29.030 align:middle line:84% the city where I thought I'd died. 00:02:29.030 --> 00:02:32.000 align:middle line:84% The river black at night with darkness over the oil 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:34.850 align:middle line:84% are both gleaming with the lights of all the fires 00:02:34.850 --> 00:02:36.890 align:middle line:90% that burned beside it. 00:02:36.890 --> 00:02:40.820 align:middle line:84% I was still there, even if that had passed. 00:02:40.820 --> 00:02:44.360 align:middle line:84% Even if all the lives that held me let me go and then 00:02:44.360 --> 00:02:47.040 align:middle line:90% themselves let go. 00:02:47.040 --> 00:02:51.050 align:middle line:84% I could return someday and walk the same streets 00:02:51.050 --> 00:02:52.940 align:middle line:90% in the same light. 00:02:52.940 --> 00:02:56.090 align:middle line:84% And no one would look my way or say my name. 00:02:56.090 --> 00:02:58.580 align:middle line:90% I was there because I had to be. 00:02:58.580 --> 00:03:02.060 align:middle line:84% But this flying in paled air, breathing 00:03:02.060 --> 00:03:06.620 align:middle line:84% a fallen crystals, and blank stone above the tree line. 00:03:06.620 --> 00:03:10.740 align:middle line:84% This soaring without wings and without faith. 00:03:10.740 --> 00:03:14.950 align:middle line:84% This was the world no one promised me. 00:03:14.950 --> 00:03:16.000 align:middle line:90%