WEBVTT

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I think I'll read a poem
about some apple trees.

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[LAUGHTER]

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I live-- after
living for many years

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in Detroit, which is
surely the ugliest and most

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inhumane and violent and
in many ways, the most

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wonderful of American cities.

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[LAUGHTER]

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I mean-- I mean, boy, you
can have a real love hate

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relationship with Detroit.

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[LAUGHS] It's really terrible.

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And yet, once you get
to know it and you

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get to know some of the
different ethnic groups

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that live there and that have
preserved their own identity

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in very pure form, it gets to
be very marvelous in Detroit.

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I was in Bulgaria
a couple of years

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ago, where I went
to a dance concert--

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a dance contest in a hotel,
a bunch of tradespeople

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were having-- and they were
all doing American dances

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about two years old.

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They were offering
prizes for the twist

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and the hully gully
and stuff like that.

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And they said that
anybody-- any time

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they want to learn
Bulgarian dances,

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they send someone to Detroit.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And they were serious, they
do because many of the dances

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and songs have been
preserved there

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better than they were at home.

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All of the intellectuals
there hang out

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in the Greek and Arabic
belly dance joints.

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And all of my friends were
always there, any time I had.

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Well, for instance-- the
first poem I read tonight,

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I had to get some
criticism one night,

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I had to reread it at Phi
Beta Kappa, so I had to--

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I had to write it in a hurry and
get some criticism in a rush,

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so I went down to the
belly dance joint.

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And-- and while the girl was
going around between the tables

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getting her brassiere
full of dollar bills,

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I was going around between
the tables with my poem

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and people--

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[LAUGHTER]

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--people were saying
OK, this goes down here.

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Wait a minute, that's no good
at all and this belongs up there

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and you can certainly do
something better than that.

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And I never got better
practical criticism in my life.

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I mean, my brother was
there, all his friends,

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all of my friends, and this is
just where everybody hangs out.

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If you're in a place like that--

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I mean, some of this
turns up in the poem,

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some of the details of that.

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Nobody really pays
much attention

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to the belly dancer
in these places,

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she's just there out
of piety, really.

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[LAUGHTER]

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I mean, you ought to
have a belly dancer,

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so-- so you have
one but nobody gets

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very much interested in that.

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It's much more interesting
later in the evening

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if there-- and especially if
there aren't too many tourists

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around.

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Then, the kids from the
island will start dancing.

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I mean, a lot of the
Greek boys come there

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and they will do the dances
from their own islands.

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And these are quite
wonderful, many of these boys

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have won major prizes in Greece.

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And-- and they're superb
magnificent dancers

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and things really begin
to get going then.

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I mean, it really gets
magnificent and beautiful.

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But something much better
than that at this one place

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we used to go to, there
was an old lady who came in

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and she was very
wonderful-- she used

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to sell peanuts and things,
and she must have-- she

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was born at the age of 78.

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[LAUGHTER]

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She was older than
everybody you ever met.

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And-- and she had-- had
life so bad that she could--

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she had just been driven
from country to country.

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And she had little chunks of--

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she could speak in
practically any language

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because any place
you could mention,

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she'd lived there for
a while before she--

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before another army came romping
through and chased her out.

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And she was very wonderful
and sometimes late at night,

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she would dance and
then everyone would just

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simply go out of their
minds with ecstasy.

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And-- if you like the
dancers, you either

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send them drinks
or you hiss I mean,

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that doesn't mean
disapproval that means

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you think she's wonderful.

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And when she ever she would
dance everybody would just

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simply, you just go wild.

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[LAUGHS]

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There was the greatest.

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She was very wonderful and
she was just terribly herself

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and terribly different.

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Well, we don't live there now,
we live outside of Syracuse

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and we live way out in
the woods in a place

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that we just plain
love, we, don't have

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mixed feelings about it at all.

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We can't see
another house and it

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was-- it's an old farm that was
built by a Tuscan farmer who

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worked it with oxen
and we still find

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the oxens' hair mixed in
the plaster of the house.

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And oh, it's simply marvelous.

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I spend my nights now instead
of going to belly dance joints,

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I'm running around the woods
with a tape recorder taping

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the owls.

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[LAUGHS]

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We have very, very
wonderful owls and--

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yeah, and I really
love that old--

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that the old Tuscan
farmer's orchard,

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which is full of the full of
old, warped, twisted trees.

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And I know I ought
to cut them down,

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I mean, they're
much too big and you

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get to thinking that surely
the trees in one orchard all

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ought to be leaning one way or
something because they've all

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had the same winds
you would think.

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But no, my trees, I mean,
some are leaning this way,

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some are leaning that way.

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And they've got arms
and legs in places

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that nothing ought
to have a limb.

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You read some of the
scientific theorists

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and you discover that a tree
apparently has a shape in mind

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that it thinks it
ought to achieve

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and you cut off its
leader and it sends up

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a substitute leader.

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It's trying to reach that
ideal shape for itself.

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You look at my
trees and you say,

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whatever got into their minds?

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[LAUGHS]

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What have they been smoking?

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I mean--

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[LAUGHTER]

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What in the world is happening--

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and I ought to cut them
down, but I don't I

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guess as you get older and
more warped and twisted, you

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or as you get older and notice
how warped and twisted you--

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you are and always have been.

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You get fond of old,
warped, twisted.

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My neighbors out there
are very rich lawyers

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who have enormous
spreads of land

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and they have
wonderful orchards,

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there all the trees are
all about eight feet

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tall the way apple
trees are supposed to be

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and they stand there
in perfect lines.

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That look so suburban
somehow that--

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also I can afford to
sneer at his orchard

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because he lets me
take the apples,

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my trees don't produce anything.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Now, this is called
"Old Apple Trees."

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"Like battered old mill hands,
they stand in the orchard.

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Like drunk legionnaires
heaving themselves up,

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lurching to attention,
not one of them

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wobbles the same way as another.

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Uniforms won't fit them,
all those cramps, humps,

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bulges here or limbs gone
there, rain and corruption

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have eaten the whole core.

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They've all grown too tall,
too thick, or too something.

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Like men, bent too long over
desks, engines, benches,

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or bent under mail
sacks, under loss.

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They've seen too much
history and bad weather,

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grown around rocks into
high winds, diseases.

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Grown too long to be willful,
too long to be changed.

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Oh, I could replant,
bulldoze the lot,

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get nursery stock, all
the latest ornamentals,

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make the whole place
look like a suburb.

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Each limb sleek as
a teeny bopper's,

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pink to the very crotch.

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Each trunk smoothed ideal as
the fantasy life of an ad man.

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We might just own the
arboreal muscle beach.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Each tree disguised as its
neighbor or each disguised

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as if not its neighbor.

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Each doing its own thing,
like executive's children.

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[LAUGHTER]

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At least, I could prune.

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At least, I should
trim the dead wood,

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fill holes where rain
collects and decay starts.

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Well, I should.

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There's a red squirrel
nests here somewhere.

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I live in the hope of
hearing one saw-whet owl.

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Then, too, they're
right about spring,

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bees hum through these branches,
like lascivious intentions.

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The white petals drift down
sift across the ground.

00:08:08.770 --> 00:08:11.620 align:middle line:84%
This air is so rich,
no man should come here

00:08:11.620 --> 00:08:15.430 align:middle line:84%
except on a working pass,
no man should leave here

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without going to confession.

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All fall apples nearly
crack the boughs,

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they hang here red is candles
in the white oncoming snow.

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Tonight, we'll drive down to
the bad part of town to the New

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Hungarian Bar or the Klub
Polski, to the Old Hellas

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where we'll eat the
new spring lamb.

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Drink good mavrodaphne,
say, at the Laikon Bar.

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Send drinks to the
dancers, those meat cutters

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and laborers, who move
in their native dances.

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The archaic forms,
maybe we'll still

00:08:57.110 --> 00:09:02.540 align:middle line:84%
find our old crone selling
chestnuts whose toothless gums

00:09:02.540 --> 00:09:08.180 align:middle line:84%
can spit out 15 languages,
who turns there late at night

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in the center of the floor.

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Her ancient dry hips wheeling
their slow, slow tsamikos.

00:09:16.940 --> 00:09:19.970 align:middle line:84%
We'll stomp under
the tables, whistle.

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We'll all hiss till even the
belly dancer leaves disgraced.

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We'll drive back, flushed
and vacant in the first dawn.

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Out of the light gray mists
may rise our flowering orchard.

00:09:37.910 --> 00:09:41.030 align:middle line:84%
The rough trunks holding
their formations,

00:09:41.030 --> 00:09:45.650 align:middle line:84%
like elders of Colonus,
the old men of Thebes

00:09:45.650 --> 00:09:49.730 align:middle line:84%
tossing their white
hair, almost whispering.

00:09:49.730 --> 00:09:52.340 align:middle line:90%


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Soon, each one of us will
be taken by dark powers

00:09:58.760 --> 00:10:06.810 align:middle line:84%
under this ground that drove
us here, that warped us,

00:10:06.810 --> 00:10:11.340 align:middle line:84%
not one of us got
it his own way.

00:10:11.340 --> 00:10:18.230 align:middle line:84%
Nothing like any one of us
will be seen again forever.

00:10:18.230 --> 00:10:20.820 align:middle line:90%


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Each of us held some
noble shape in mind.

00:10:26.340 --> 00:10:30.980 align:middle line:84%
It seemed better
that we kept alive."

00:10:30.980 --> 00:10:32.085 align:middle line:90%