WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.220 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.220 --> 00:00:04.260 align:middle line:90% This poem, "Lucky Life"-- 00:00:04.260 --> 00:00:06.240 align:middle line:84% we used to go down to the seashore once a year. 00:00:06.240 --> 00:00:07.800 align:middle line:90% Our place was Long Beach Island. 00:00:07.800 --> 00:00:09.420 align:middle line:84% Everybody has their summer place. 00:00:09.420 --> 00:00:11.370 align:middle line:84% You know, you go to the cabin or the boat. 00:00:11.370 --> 00:00:12.467 align:middle line:90% I used to, for years-- 00:00:12.467 --> 00:00:13.800 align:middle line:90% nobody knew it, my wife didn't-- 00:00:13.800 --> 00:00:15.540 align:middle line:90% I hated the seashore. 00:00:15.540 --> 00:00:18.567 align:middle line:84% When I'd go down there, it was terrible Dirty quarters, 00:00:18.567 --> 00:00:19.275 align:middle line:90% crowded up there. 00:00:19.275 --> 00:00:22.103 align:middle line:84% It's crowded and noisy and sandy, and I hated the ocean. 00:00:22.103 --> 00:00:23.270 align:middle line:90% I hated everything about it. 00:00:23.270 --> 00:00:25.187 align:middle line:84% But I got into the habit of writing a seashore 00:00:25.187 --> 00:00:25.950 align:middle line:90% poem every year. 00:00:25.950 --> 00:00:27.533 align:middle line:84% So I have four or five seashore poems. 00:00:27.533 --> 00:00:29.520 align:middle line:84% And I wrote four or five in one week 00:00:29.520 --> 00:00:31.270 align:middle line:90% once to get it all over with. 00:00:31.270 --> 00:00:31.770 align:middle line:90% And-- 00:00:31.770 --> 00:00:33.600 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:33.600 --> 00:00:35.370 align:middle line:90% --it's really awful. 00:00:35.370 --> 00:00:37.620 align:middle line:90% This is one of those poems. 00:00:37.620 --> 00:00:39.990 align:middle line:84% And there's, unfortunately, some things here 00:00:39.990 --> 00:00:41.250 align:middle line:90% that are not common knowledge. 00:00:41.250 --> 00:00:42.958 align:middle line:84% There's a reference to a city, but it can 00:00:42.958 --> 00:00:44.340 align:middle line:90% be any city you want, right? 00:00:44.340 --> 00:00:45.840 align:middle line:84% It's called Phillipsburg New Jersey. 00:00:45.840 --> 00:00:48.060 align:middle line:90% But it could be any-- 00:00:48.060 --> 00:00:49.110 align:middle line:90% more or less any city. 00:00:49.110 --> 00:00:50.640 align:middle line:90% It has trees and streets. 00:00:50.640 --> 00:00:53.547 align:middle line:84% And I mention a statue of Christopher Columbus. 00:00:53.547 --> 00:00:55.380 align:middle line:84% My god, there's one everywhere, isn't there, 00:00:55.380 --> 00:00:59.070 align:middle line:84% you know, trying to con you before he killed the Indians, 00:00:59.070 --> 00:00:59.970 align:middle line:90% you know. 00:00:59.970 --> 00:01:02.760 align:middle line:90% "Lucky Life," it's called. 00:01:02.760 --> 00:01:06.190 align:middle line:84% "Lucky life isn't one long string of horrors, 00:01:06.190 --> 00:01:08.760 align:middle line:84% there are moments of peace and pleasure 00:01:08.760 --> 00:01:11.640 align:middle line:90% as I lie in between the blows. 00:01:11.640 --> 00:01:14.850 align:middle line:84% Lucky I don't have to wake up in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, 00:01:14.850 --> 00:01:17.700 align:middle line:84% on the hill overlooking Union Square or the hill 00:01:17.700 --> 00:01:20.130 align:middle line:84% overlooking Kuebler Brewery or the hill 00:01:20.130 --> 00:01:22.320 align:middle line:84% overlooking Saints Philip and James 00:01:22.320 --> 00:01:26.700 align:middle line:84% but have my own hills and my own vistas to come back to. 00:01:26.700 --> 00:01:28.500 align:middle line:84% Each year I go down to the island, 00:01:28.500 --> 00:01:30.870 align:middle line:84% I add one more year to the darkness. 00:01:30.870 --> 00:01:33.090 align:middle line:84% And though I sit up with my dear friends 00:01:33.090 --> 00:01:36.150 align:middle line:84% trying to separate the one year from the other, this one 00:01:36.150 --> 00:01:40.260 align:middle line:84% from the last, that one from the former, another from another, 00:01:40.260 --> 00:01:43.290 align:middle line:84% after a while, they all get lumped together-- the year 00:01:43.290 --> 00:01:47.250 align:middle line:84% we walked to Holgate, the year our shoes got washed away, 00:01:47.250 --> 00:01:51.840 align:middle line:84% the year it rained, the year my tooth brought misery to us all. 00:01:51.840 --> 00:01:53.490 align:middle line:90% This year was a crisis. 00:01:53.490 --> 00:01:56.250 align:middle line:84% I knew it when we pulled the car onto the sand 00:01:56.250 --> 00:01:57.630 align:middle line:90% and looked for the key. 00:01:57.630 --> 00:02:00.030 align:middle line:84% I knew it when we walked up the outside steps 00:02:00.030 --> 00:02:02.970 align:middle line:84% and opened the hot icebox and began the struggle 00:02:02.970 --> 00:02:07.560 align:middle line:84% with swollen drawers, and I knew it when we laid out the sheets 00:02:07.560 --> 00:02:10.500 align:middle line:84% and separated the clothes into piles, 00:02:10.500 --> 00:02:14.190 align:middle line:84% and I knew it when we made our first rush onto the beach, 00:02:14.190 --> 00:02:16.590 align:middle line:84% and I knew it when we finally sat on the porch 00:02:16.590 --> 00:02:19.560 align:middle line:84% with coffee cups shaking in our hands. 00:02:19.560 --> 00:02:22.170 align:middle line:84% My dream is I'm walking through Phillipsburg, New Jersey, 00:02:22.170 --> 00:02:24.180 align:middle line:84% and I'm lost on South Main Street. 00:02:24.180 --> 00:02:27.870 align:middle line:84% I'm trying to tell by memory which statue of Christopher 00:02:27.870 --> 00:02:30.390 align:middle line:84% Columbus I have to look for, the one with him 00:02:30.390 --> 00:02:33.180 align:middle line:84% slumped over and lost in weariness or the one 00:02:33.180 --> 00:02:36.390 align:middle line:84% with him vaguely guiding the way with a cross and globe 00:02:36.390 --> 00:02:39.630 align:middle line:84% in one hand and a compass in the other. 00:02:39.630 --> 00:02:44.400 align:middle line:84% My dream is I'm in the Eagle Hotel on Chamber Street, 00:02:44.400 --> 00:02:46.410 align:middle line:84% sitting at the oak bar, listening 00:02:46.410 --> 00:02:50.580 align:middle line:84% to two obese veterans discussing Hawaii in 1942 00:02:50.580 --> 00:02:53.370 align:middle line:84% and reading the funny signs over the bottles. 00:02:53.370 --> 00:02:56.460 align:middle line:84% My dream is I sleep upstairs over the honey locust 00:02:56.460 --> 00:02:59.310 align:middle line:84% and sit on the side porch overlooking the stone 00:02:59.310 --> 00:03:02.610 align:middle line:84% culvert with a whole new set of friends, 00:03:02.610 --> 00:03:05.400 align:middle line:90% mostly old and humorless. 00:03:05.400 --> 00:03:09.120 align:middle line:84% Dear waves, what will you do for me this year? 00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:11.460 align:middle line:90% Will you drown out my scream? 00:03:11.460 --> 00:03:13.980 align:middle line:84% Will you let me rise through the fog? 00:03:13.980 --> 00:03:16.980 align:middle line:84% Will you fill me with that old salt feeling? 00:03:16.980 --> 00:03:20.400 align:middle line:84% Will you let me take my long steps in the cold sand? 00:03:20.400 --> 00:03:22.560 align:middle line:84% Will you let me lie on the white bedspread 00:03:22.560 --> 00:03:25.980 align:middle line:84% and study the black clouds with the blue holes in them? 00:03:25.980 --> 00:03:29.010 align:middle line:84% Will you let me see the rusty trees and the old monoplanes 00:03:29.010 --> 00:03:30.780 align:middle line:90% one more year? 00:03:30.780 --> 00:03:34.110 align:middle line:84% Will you still let me draw my sacred figures 00:03:34.110 --> 00:03:38.340 align:middle line:84% and move the kites and the birds around with my dark mind? 00:03:38.340 --> 00:03:40.770 align:middle line:90% Lucky life is like this. 00:03:40.770 --> 00:03:43.470 align:middle line:84% Lucky there's an ocean to come to. 00:03:43.470 --> 00:03:46.470 align:middle line:84% Lucky you can judge yourself in this water. 00:03:46.470 --> 00:03:50.310 align:middle line:84% Lucky the waves are cold enough to wash out the meanness. 00:03:50.310 --> 00:03:54.990 align:middle line:84% Lucky you can be purified over and over again. 00:03:54.990 --> 00:03:59.040 align:middle line:84% Lucky there is the same cleanliness for everyone. 00:03:59.040 --> 00:04:01.290 align:middle line:90% Lucky life is like that. 00:04:01.290 --> 00:04:02.940 align:middle line:90% Lucky life. 00:04:02.940 --> 00:04:05.040 align:middle line:90% Oh, lucky life. 00:04:05.040 --> 00:04:07.440 align:middle line:90% Oh, lucky, lucky life. 00:04:07.440 --> 00:04:10.144 align:middle line:90% Lucky life. 00:04:10.144 --> 00:04:13.616 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:04:13.616 --> 00:04:23.040 align:middle line:90% 00:04:23.040 --> 00:04:24.528 align:middle line:90% Thank you very much. 00:04:24.528 --> 00:04:32.980 align:middle line:90% 00:04:32.980 --> 00:04:34.510 align:middle line:90% Thank you very much. 00:04:34.510 --> 00:04:37.030 align:middle line:90% We'll have that stuff out there. 00:04:37.030 --> 00:04:38.860 align:middle line:90% What's it called? 00:04:38.860 --> 00:04:42.670 align:middle line:84% Punch and cookies, and we can say hello. 00:04:42.670 --> 00:04:44.050 align:middle line:90% Whose watch am I about to steal? 00:04:44.050 --> 00:04:48.500 align:middle line:90% 00:04:48.500 --> 00:04:49.280 align:middle line:90% No, I can do it. 00:04:49.280 --> 00:04:52.910 align:middle line:90% It's so [INAUDIBLE]. 00:04:52.910 --> 00:04:55.060 align:middle line:90% I'll see you later, right? 00:04:55.060 --> 00:05:02.498 align:middle line:90%