WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.640 align:middle line:84% And you can figure out the syntax of that. 00:00:02.640 --> 00:00:05.010 align:middle line:84% I thought maybe-- impulse was, therefore, 00:00:05.010 --> 00:00:08.130 align:middle line:84% to read a few more recent poems, and then we 00:00:08.130 --> 00:00:09.990 align:middle line:90% could break for questions. 00:00:09.990 --> 00:00:12.470 align:middle line:84% Or you could run for the door, as it were. 00:00:12.470 --> 00:00:14.310 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:14.310 --> 00:00:20.490 align:middle line:90% This summer I wrote-- 00:00:20.490 --> 00:00:24.690 align:middle line:84% I was in a situation which is ostensibly provided, so if I 00:00:24.690 --> 00:00:27.690 align:middle line:90% could write my deathless works. 00:00:27.690 --> 00:00:29.280 align:middle line:84% And as usual, it's very hard to write 00:00:29.280 --> 00:00:30.488 align:middle line:90% in that kind of circumstance. 00:00:30.488 --> 00:00:31.656 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:31.656 --> 00:00:33.480 align:middle line:84% It's like being told to go to the bathroom. 00:00:33.480 --> 00:00:36.526 align:middle line:84% You're not coming out til you've done something. 00:00:36.526 --> 00:00:38.720 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:38.720 --> 00:00:39.220 align:middle line:90% I hate it. 00:00:39.220 --> 00:00:42.450 align:middle line:90% I hate it. 00:00:42.450 --> 00:00:46.920 align:middle line:84% But nonetheless, it was a curious villa. 00:00:46.920 --> 00:00:53.730 align:middle line:84% It was about six miles down the main road from Genoa, 00:00:53.730 --> 00:00:56.940 align:middle line:84% and that part of Italy is very steep. 00:00:56.940 --> 00:00:59.640 align:middle line:84% You know, steep, almost cliff-like site, 00:00:59.640 --> 00:01:01.770 align:middle line:90% with steep hill-- 00:01:01.770 --> 00:01:06.480 align:middle line:84% rocky, so that the road clings to the edge, 00:01:06.480 --> 00:01:09.990 align:middle line:84% and below there are a few occasional villas, and then 00:01:09.990 --> 00:01:15.150 align:middle line:84% villages, usually like little cubbies, coves. 00:01:15.150 --> 00:01:17.690 align:middle line:90% And so this was our situation. 00:01:17.690 --> 00:01:23.880 align:middle line:84% This villa was built, curiously, by a Bolivian family-- 00:01:23.880 --> 00:01:25.830 align:middle line:84% something like 19-- the year I was born, 00:01:25.830 --> 00:01:28.530 align:middle line:90% it was built in 1926-- 00:01:28.530 --> 00:01:32.760 align:middle line:84% who came and stayed there simply for two years and then sold it. 00:01:32.760 --> 00:01:37.320 align:middle line:84% But to build this thing, they built it over the railroad. 00:01:37.320 --> 00:01:40.050 align:middle line:84% So there's a long row of tunnels underneath this villa, 00:01:40.050 --> 00:01:42.420 align:middle line:84% and otherwise it's almost like a movie 00:01:42.420 --> 00:01:44.820 align:middle line:84% set when you looked out at the sea. 00:01:44.820 --> 00:01:47.820 align:middle line:84% It was a very curious circumstance. 00:01:47.820 --> 00:01:51.990 align:middle line:84% It's now used as the Bogliasco Foundation's digs, 00:01:51.990 --> 00:01:56.920 align:middle line:84% owned by a precarious, basically Swiss-Italian family. 00:01:56.920 --> 00:01:58.530 align:middle line:84% They use it as a tax write-off, which 00:01:58.530 --> 00:02:03.200 align:middle line:84% is always one way to think of these things. 00:02:03.200 --> 00:02:05.820 align:middle line:90% "The Mediterranean." 00:02:05.820 --> 00:02:09.180 align:middle line:84% "The cranky, low-decked freighter with orange stick-up 00:02:09.180 --> 00:02:13.440 align:middle line:84% stern cabin you could see from the open window of this place 00:02:13.440 --> 00:02:14.130 align:middle line:90% each day"-- 00:02:14.130 --> 00:02:15.720 align:middle line:90% I'm going to start again. 00:02:15.720 --> 00:02:17.700 align:middle line:84% "The cranky, low-decked freighter 00:02:17.700 --> 00:02:20.460 align:middle line:84% with orange stick-up stern cabin we 00:02:20.460 --> 00:02:24.600 align:middle line:84% could see from the open window of this place each day 00:02:24.600 --> 00:02:29.520 align:middle line:84% out there on proverbial ocean has moved away, 00:02:29.520 --> 00:02:34.560 align:middle line:84% shifting the focus of that blue to an implacable distance, 00:02:34.560 --> 00:02:38.850 align:middle line:84% now going out to a shaded, faded edge of sky 00:02:38.850 --> 00:02:42.550 align:middle line:84% beyond all the called dreams or places. 00:02:42.550 --> 00:02:47.580 align:middle line:84% One so wanted it to be the old time story of them waiting 00:02:47.580 --> 00:02:51.960 align:middle line:84% till dark at last came, and then with muffled oars 00:02:51.960 --> 00:02:56.610 align:middle line:84% they'd row into the hidden cove, climb up the adjoining cliff 00:02:56.610 --> 00:03:00.060 align:middle line:90% and into my waiting heart. 00:03:00.060 --> 00:03:03.480 align:middle line:84% How many times so long ago I'd see the fishermen 00:03:03.480 --> 00:03:06.660 align:middle line:84% at nightfall row out to the darkened sea 00:03:06.660 --> 00:03:10.410 align:middle line:84% with their long, awkward boats, oars in unison, to 00:03:10.410 --> 00:03:13.335 align:middle line:90% what determined fate? 00:03:13.335 --> 00:03:17.580 align:middle line:84% And if there were a world at edge of this one, there at last 00:03:17.580 --> 00:03:19.980 align:middle line:90% they might pull ashore. 00:03:19.980 --> 00:03:24.900 align:middle line:84% Now the sea's slurring, recurring sound, its battering, 00:03:24.900 --> 00:03:29.460 align:middle line:84% white-capped upon the rocks, forces both free and unknown 00:03:29.460 --> 00:03:34.230 align:middle line:84% to me, have no work but this tedious recurrence. 00:03:34.230 --> 00:03:38.500 align:middle line:84% Dreams repeated, insistent, useless." 00:03:38.500 --> 00:03:39.000 align:middle line:90%