WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.970 align:middle line:90% Thank you very much for that. 00:00:02.970 --> 00:00:04.590 align:middle line:90% They're sunchokes, you're right. 00:00:04.590 --> 00:00:07.380 align:middle line:90% You're absolutely right. 00:00:07.380 --> 00:00:08.620 align:middle line:90% It's good to be here. 00:00:08.620 --> 00:00:13.830 align:middle line:84% I really feel lucky to be here as part of this. 00:00:13.830 --> 00:00:19.875 align:middle line:90% And I'm going to read you poems. 00:00:19.875 --> 00:00:21.500 align:middle line:84% I think the way that I'm going to read, 00:00:21.500 --> 00:00:25.100 align:middle line:84% there's going to be a kind of, sort of-- 00:00:25.100 --> 00:00:30.860 align:middle line:84% hey, so it's cold out, chilly, so, with consent, 00:00:30.860 --> 00:00:33.470 align:middle line:90% I think we should be closer. 00:00:33.470 --> 00:00:37.160 align:middle line:84% Just like, if you're cold, lean into your neighbor, if it's OK. 00:00:37.160 --> 00:00:40.387 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:40.387 --> 00:00:44.890 align:middle line:90% 00:00:44.890 --> 00:00:46.390 align:middle line:84% I'm sort of interested in the ways 00:00:46.390 --> 00:00:53.600 align:middle line:84% that we all collaborate, sort of unwittingly, invisibly. 00:00:53.600 --> 00:00:56.050 align:middle line:90% Keep each other warm. 00:00:56.050 --> 00:00:58.450 align:middle line:84% I'm going to start with the poem that you mentioned, 00:00:58.450 --> 00:00:59.460 align:middle line:90% "Sharing with the Ants." 00:00:59.460 --> 00:01:02.050 align:middle line:90% 00:01:02.050 --> 00:01:04.450 align:middle line:90% And what I was going to say-- 00:01:04.450 --> 00:01:08.020 align:middle line:84% I think I probably interrupted myself, as I do sometimes. 00:01:08.020 --> 00:01:11.650 align:middle line:84% This reading will probably make some kind of an-- 00:01:11.650 --> 00:01:13.330 align:middle line:84% argument is too strong of a word-- 00:01:13.330 --> 00:01:17.170 align:middle line:84% but a sort of notion of a relationship between the lyric 00:01:17.170 --> 00:01:20.770 align:middle line:84% or the poetic and the ecological. 00:01:20.770 --> 00:01:22.750 align:middle line:90% "Sharing with the Ants." 00:01:22.750 --> 00:01:26.020 align:middle line:84% A euphemism for some, yank and gobble, no doubt, 00:01:26.020 --> 00:01:28.720 align:middle line:84% some yummy tumbler or other, like monkey 00:01:28.720 --> 00:01:30.370 align:middle line:90% spanking, or hiding the salami. 00:01:30.370 --> 00:01:31.690 align:middle line:90% Of course your mind goes there. 00:01:31.690 --> 00:01:33.550 align:middle line:90% Me too, me too. 00:01:33.550 --> 00:01:34.540 align:middle line:90% You have a favorite? 00:01:34.540 --> 00:01:35.290 align:middle line:90% Don't lie. 00:01:35.290 --> 00:01:36.430 align:middle line:90% I've heard you say them. 00:01:36.430 --> 00:01:40.360 align:middle line:84% Tending the hive, eating the melon. 00:01:40.360 --> 00:01:43.000 align:middle line:90% How is the tunnel traffic? 00:01:43.000 --> 00:01:45.580 align:middle line:84% Or, as a "massage therapist" would say to my pal 00:01:45.580 --> 00:01:48.100 align:middle line:84% when his loneliness dragged him to a carpeted room 00:01:48.100 --> 00:01:50.170 align:middle line:84% in an apartment building in Chinatown 00:01:50.170 --> 00:01:53.860 align:middle line:84% where the small hands lathered his body, open the door. 00:01:53.860 --> 00:01:58.180 align:middle line:84% Naturally sharing with the ants some entymologic metaphor. 00:01:58.180 --> 00:02:01.870 align:middle line:84% The chronic yoke in lovemaking, not only of body to body, 00:02:01.870 --> 00:02:03.910 align:middle line:90% but life to death. 00:02:03.910 --> 00:02:05.560 align:middle line:90% Sharing with the ants. 00:02:05.560 --> 00:02:09.160 align:middle line:84% Or, the specific act of dragging with the tongue, 00:02:09.160 --> 00:02:12.910 align:middle line:84% one sweat-gilded body from the tibia's lookout, 00:02:12.910 --> 00:02:15.340 align:middle line:84% along the rope bridge of the Achilles, 00:02:15.340 --> 00:02:18.460 align:middle line:84% marching across the long plains of the calf 00:02:18.460 --> 00:02:21.760 align:middle line:84% and the meticulously unnamed zone behind the knee 00:02:21.760 --> 00:02:22.660 align:middle line:90% over the hamstring. 00:02:22.660 --> 00:02:25.360 align:middle line:84% And to use your imagination, for Chrissakes, 00:02:25.360 --> 00:02:29.530 align:middle line:84% but I will tell you it is dark there and sweet. 00:02:29.530 --> 00:02:32.060 align:middle line:90% Sharing with the ants. 00:02:32.060 --> 00:02:34.430 align:middle line:84% But that's not at all what I'm talking about. 00:02:34.430 --> 00:02:37.160 align:middle line:84% I actually am talking about sharing with the ants, 00:02:37.160 --> 00:02:41.630 align:middle line:84% which I did, September 21, a Friday, in 2012, when, 00:02:41.630 --> 00:02:46.310 align:middle line:84% by fluke or whim or prayer, I jostled the crotch-high fig 00:02:46.310 --> 00:02:50.270 align:middle line:84% tree whose few fruit had been scooped by our fat friends 00:02:50.270 --> 00:02:53.330 align:middle line:84% the squirrels, but found shriveled and purple 00:02:53.330 --> 00:02:56.803 align:middle line:84% into an almost testicular papoose-- 00:02:56.803 --> 00:02:58.220 align:middle line:84% Who knows what a fig looks like?-- 00:02:58.220 --> 00:03:02.990 align:middle line:90% 00:03:02.990 --> 00:03:05.870 align:middle line:84% into an almost testicular papoose, 00:03:05.870 --> 00:03:08.270 align:middle line:84% smuggled beneath the fronds of a few 00:03:08.270 --> 00:03:12.860 align:middle line:84% leaves one stalwart fruit, which I immediately bit in half, 00:03:12.860 --> 00:03:18.030 align:middle line:84% only to find a small platoon of ants twisting in the meat. 00:03:18.030 --> 00:03:21.050 align:middle line:84% And when I spit out my bite, another four or five 00:03:21.050 --> 00:03:26.840 align:middle line:84% lay sacked out, their spindly legs pedaling slow nothing. 00:03:26.840 --> 00:03:31.010 align:middle line:84% One barely looking at me through a half-open eye, 00:03:31.010 --> 00:03:34.700 align:middle line:84% the way an infant might, curled into its mother's breast. 00:03:34.700 --> 00:03:37.700 align:middle line:84% And one stumbled, dazed, through my beard, 00:03:37.700 --> 00:03:41.330 align:middle line:84% tickling me as it tumbled head over feet over head 00:03:41.330 --> 00:03:44.870 align:middle line:84% over feet, back into the bite in my hand, the hooked 00:03:44.870 --> 00:03:47.480 align:middle line:84% sabers of their mandibles made soft, 00:03:47.480 --> 00:03:52.100 align:middle line:84% kneading the flesh, their claws heavy and slow with fruit, 00:03:52.100 --> 00:03:55.580 align:middle line:84% their armor slathered plush as the seeds shown 00:03:55.580 --> 00:04:00.710 align:middle line:84% above the sounds of their work, like water slapping a pier at 00:04:00.710 --> 00:04:02.470 align:middle line:90% night. 00:04:02.470 --> 00:04:06.790 align:middle line:84% And not one to disrupt an orgy, I mostly gobbled 00:04:06.790 --> 00:04:11.740 align:middle line:84% around their nuzzle and slurp, careful not to chomp a reveler. 00:04:11.740 --> 00:04:15.250 align:middle line:84% And nibbling one last thread of flesh, 00:04:15.250 --> 00:04:19.540 align:middle line:84% I noticed a dozy ant nibbling the same toward me, 00:04:19.540 --> 00:04:23.470 align:middle line:84% its antenna just caressing my face, 00:04:23.470 --> 00:04:25.690 align:middle line:90% its pincers slowing at my lips. 00:04:25.690 --> 00:04:28.510 align:middle line:84% Both of our mouths sugared and shining, 00:04:28.510 --> 00:04:31.750 align:middle line:84% both of us twirling beneath the fig's seeds, 00:04:31.750 --> 00:04:34.570 align:middle line:84% spinning like a newly discovered galaxy 00:04:34.570 --> 00:04:37.050 align:middle line:90% that's been there forever. 00:04:37.050 --> 00:04:39.000 align:middle line:90%