WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.390 align:middle line:90%


00:00:01.390 --> 00:00:06.790 align:middle line:84%
And the last poem
that I'm going to read

00:00:06.790 --> 00:00:12.100 align:middle line:84%
is for John Gardner, who
died in a motorcycle accident

00:00:12.100 --> 00:00:16.570 align:middle line:84%
this September, and who
is very sorely missed.

00:00:16.570 --> 00:00:19.015 align:middle line:84%
And it's called
"Notes for an Elegy."

00:00:19.015 --> 00:00:22.664 align:middle line:90%


00:00:22.664 --> 00:00:27.820 align:middle line:84%
"Because you died in autumn,
I write as though the leaves

00:00:27.820 --> 00:00:31.420 align:middle line:84%
had turned for you,
as though the sun's

00:00:31.420 --> 00:00:37.400 align:middle line:84%
defection on this chilly
day were somehow particular.

00:00:37.400 --> 00:00:41.620 align:middle line:84%
I want to write condolence
notes, not to your friends,

00:00:41.620 --> 00:00:44.830 align:middle line:84%
but to the ones who
didn't know you yet.

00:00:44.830 --> 00:00:48.400 align:middle line:84%
I tell them how you give
a rough pat to the dog,

00:00:48.400 --> 00:00:52.630 align:middle line:84%
the backhand of attention
to a thousand things

00:00:52.630 --> 00:00:55.300 align:middle line:90%
had that sufficed.

00:00:55.300 --> 00:01:01.420 align:middle line:84%
Because your vivid life was the
continuous stream of fiction,

00:01:01.420 --> 00:01:04.959 align:middle line:90%
is death a kind of waking up?

00:01:04.959 --> 00:01:09.070 align:middle line:84%
Did recklessness
get you after all?

00:01:09.070 --> 00:01:14.440 align:middle line:84%
I used to picture you years from
now typing your way to old age

00:01:14.440 --> 00:01:17.260 align:middle line:84%
through the restless
nights the way

00:01:17.260 --> 00:01:21.070 align:middle line:84%
you typed that summer
in the room under mine

00:01:21.070 --> 00:01:26.830 align:middle line:84%
when I followed the clattering
footsteps of your old machine

00:01:26.830 --> 00:01:29.950 align:middle line:90%
all the way to sleep.

00:01:29.950 --> 00:01:33.300 align:middle line:90%
[AUDIENCE CLAPPING]

00:01:33.300 --> 00:01:53.000 align:middle line:90%