WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.770 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.770 --> 00:00:02.520 align:middle line:90% Two more poems. 00:00:02.520 --> 00:00:06.160 align:middle line:90% 00:00:06.160 --> 00:00:08.890 align:middle line:90% Habit gets a bad rep. 00:00:08.890 --> 00:00:11.770 align:middle line:84% We think that habit maybe dulls our perceptions, 00:00:11.770 --> 00:00:13.660 align:middle line:84% it keeps us from seeing the new, but there's 00:00:13.660 --> 00:00:14.750 align:middle line:90% much to be said for habit. 00:00:14.750 --> 00:00:18.038 align:middle line:84% If you know what kind of cereal you like, 00:00:18.038 --> 00:00:20.080 align:middle line:84% you don't have to spend time thinking about that. 00:00:20.080 --> 00:00:21.580 align:middle line:84% You're free to consider other things. 00:00:21.580 --> 00:00:22.660 align:middle line:84% If you know how you like your coffee, 00:00:22.660 --> 00:00:24.320 align:middle line:84% you don't have to make a decision. 00:00:24.320 --> 00:00:27.490 align:middle line:84% So this is one that begins as an account of what 00:00:27.490 --> 00:00:29.620 align:middle line:84% happened to me when one of my habits 00:00:29.620 --> 00:00:34.940 align:middle line:84% was broken and then travels from there. 00:00:34.940 --> 00:00:38.150 align:middle line:84% It is called-- for reasons which will soon become clear to you-- 00:00:38.150 --> 00:00:41.450 align:middle line:90% "This Your Home Now." 00:00:41.450 --> 00:00:45.710 align:middle line:84% For years I went to the Peruvian barbers on 18th Street-- 00:00:45.710 --> 00:00:47.390 align:middle line:90% comforting, welcome. 00:00:47.390 --> 00:00:50.690 align:middle line:84% The full coat rack, three chairs held by three barbers, 00:00:50.690 --> 00:00:52.820 align:middle line:84% eldest by the window, the middle one 00:00:52.820 --> 00:00:54.800 align:middle line:84% a slight fellow who spoke an oddly 00:00:54.800 --> 00:00:58.250 align:middle line:84% feminine Spanish, the youngest last, red haired, 00:00:58.250 --> 00:01:01.250 align:middle line:84% self-consciously masculine, and in each of the mirrors 00:01:01.250 --> 00:01:04.430 align:middle line:84% their children's photos, mildly smutty cartoons, 00:01:04.430 --> 00:01:07.070 align:middle line:90% postcards from Machu Picchu. 00:01:07.070 --> 00:01:09.860 align:middle line:84% I was happy in any chair though I liked best 00:01:09.860 --> 00:01:13.130 align:middle line:84% the touch of the eldest who'd rest his hand against my neck 00:01:13.130 --> 00:01:16.190 align:middle line:90% in a thoughtless confident way. 00:01:16.190 --> 00:01:17.960 align:middle line:90% Ten years maybe. 00:01:17.960 --> 00:01:20.930 align:middle line:84% Then one day the powdery blue steel shutters 00:01:20.930 --> 00:01:25.010 align:middle line:84% pulled down over the window and door not to be raised again. 00:01:25.010 --> 00:01:26.870 align:middle line:90% They'd lost their lease. 00:01:26.870 --> 00:01:29.150 align:middle line:84% I didn't know how at a loss I'd feel. 00:01:29.150 --> 00:01:31.040 align:middle line:84% This haze around what I like to think, 00:01:31.040 --> 00:01:33.050 align:middle line:84% the sculptural presence of my skull 00:01:33.050 --> 00:01:35.420 align:middle line:84% requires neither art nor science, 00:01:35.420 --> 00:01:39.590 align:middle line:84% but two haircuts on 7th, one in Dublin, nothing right. 00:01:39.590 --> 00:01:42.740 align:middle line:84% Then I hear my friend Marie laughing over my shoulder 00:01:42.740 --> 00:01:45.440 align:middle line:84% saying, in your poems there's always a then, and I think, 00:01:45.440 --> 00:01:47.420 align:middle line:90% is it a poem without a then? 00:01:47.420 --> 00:01:50.930 align:middle line:84% Dull early winter, back on 18th, up spiraling red 00:01:50.930 --> 00:01:53.750 align:middle line:84% in a cylinder of glass and just below the line of sidewalk 00:01:53.750 --> 00:01:56.300 align:middle line:90% a new sign, Willie's Barbershop. 00:01:56.300 --> 00:02:00.350 align:middle line:84% Dark hallway, glass door, and there's presumably Willie. 00:02:00.350 --> 00:02:02.250 align:middle line:84% When I tell him I used to go down the street, 00:02:02.250 --> 00:02:05.420 align:middle line:84% he says in an inscrutable accent, this your home now. 00:02:05.420 --> 00:02:07.460 align:middle line:84% Puts me in a chair, asks me what I want, 00:02:07.460 --> 00:02:09.199 align:middle line:84% and soon he's clipping and singing 00:02:09.199 --> 00:02:11.900 align:middle line:84% with the radio's Latin dance tune. 00:02:11.900 --> 00:02:14.660 align:middle line:84% That's when I notice Willie's walls, though he's been here 00:02:14.660 --> 00:02:18.020 align:middle line:84% all of a week, spangled with images hung in barbershops 00:02:18.020 --> 00:02:21.050 align:middle line:84% since the beginning of time, lounge singers, 00:02:21.050 --> 00:02:23.990 align:middle line:84% near celebrities, random boxers, Italian boys, 00:02:23.990 --> 00:02:26.300 align:middle line:84% Puerto Rican caught in the hour of their beauty 00:02:26.300 --> 00:02:28.760 align:middle line:84% though they'd scowl at the word, victors 00:02:28.760 --> 00:02:30.200 align:middle line:90% cheering over a trophy-- 00:02:30.200 --> 00:02:34.700 align:middle line:84% won for what-- frames already dusty at slight angles. 00:02:34.700 --> 00:02:37.700 align:middle line:90% Here it's clear forever. 00:02:37.700 --> 00:02:41.330 align:middle line:84% Are barber shops like aspens, each run from a common root 00:02:41.330 --> 00:02:43.460 align:middle line:90% 10,000 years old? 00:02:43.460 --> 00:02:45.380 align:middle line:90% Sons of one father? 00:02:45.380 --> 00:02:47.510 align:middle line:84% Flashing fighters and starlets to shield 00:02:47.510 --> 00:02:49.490 align:middle line:90% the tenderness of their hearts? 00:02:49.490 --> 00:02:54.140 align:middle line:84% Our guardian Willie defies time, his chair our ferryboat. 00:02:54.140 --> 00:02:56.150 align:middle line:84% And we go down in the trance of touch 00:02:56.150 --> 00:02:59.000 align:middle line:84% and a skull buzz drone singing cranial nerves 00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:00.920 align:middle line:90% in the direction of peace. 00:03:00.920 --> 00:03:04.130 align:middle line:84% And so I understand that in the back of this nothing 00:03:04.130 --> 00:03:07.250 align:middle line:84% building on 18th Street, I've found that door 00:03:07.250 --> 00:03:10.130 align:middle line:84% ajar before in daylight when it shouldn't be. 00:03:10.130 --> 00:03:12.440 align:middle line:84% Some forgotten bulb left burning in a shaft 00:03:12.440 --> 00:03:14.420 align:middle line:90% of my uncharted nights. 00:03:14.420 --> 00:03:18.440 align:middle line:84% The men I have outlived await their turns, the fevered 00:03:18.440 --> 00:03:22.010 align:middle line:84% and wasted whose mothers and lovers scattered their ashes 00:03:22.010 --> 00:03:23.810 align:middle line:90% and gave away their clothes. 00:03:23.810 --> 00:03:25.910 align:middle line:84% Twenty years and their names tumble 00:03:25.910 --> 00:03:28.670 align:middle line:84% into a numb well though in truth I have not forgotten 00:03:28.670 --> 00:03:29.540 align:middle line:90% one of you. 00:03:29.540 --> 00:03:31.400 align:middle line:90% May I never forget one of you. 00:03:31.400 --> 00:03:34.340 align:middle line:84% These layers of men, arrayed in there no longer 00:03:34.340 --> 00:03:36.530 align:middle line:90% breathing ranks. 00:03:36.530 --> 00:03:40.190 align:middle line:84% Willie, I have not lived well in my grief for them. 00:03:40.190 --> 00:03:41.930 align:middle line:84% I have lugged this weight from place 00:03:41.930 --> 00:03:44.810 align:middle line:84% to place as though it were mine to account for. 00:03:44.810 --> 00:03:47.810 align:middle line:84% And today I sit in your good chair in the sixth decade 00:03:47.810 --> 00:03:49.640 align:middle line:84% of my life, and if your back door 00:03:49.640 --> 00:03:51.800 align:middle line:84% is a threshold of the kingdom of the lost, 00:03:51.800 --> 00:03:54.860 align:middle line:84% yours is a steady hand on my shoulder. 00:03:54.860 --> 00:03:58.250 align:middle line:84% Go down into the still waters of this chair and come up 00:03:58.250 --> 00:04:01.400 align:middle line:84% refreshed ready to face the avenue. 00:04:01.400 --> 00:04:04.940 align:middle line:84% Maybe I do believe we will not be left comfortless. 00:04:04.940 --> 00:04:06.830 align:middle line:84% After everything comes tumbling down 00:04:06.830 --> 00:04:09.380 align:middle line:84% or you tear it down and stumble in the shadow valley 00:04:09.380 --> 00:04:11.270 align:middle line:84% trenches of the moon, there's still 00:04:11.270 --> 00:04:14.630 align:middle line:84% a decent chance that a barbershop, salsa 00:04:14.630 --> 00:04:19.370 align:middle line:84% on the radio, the instruments of renewal wielded effortlessly, 00:04:19.370 --> 00:04:22.040 align:middle line:90% and who'd have thought for you. 00:04:22.040 --> 00:04:24.740 align:middle line:84% Willie, if he is Willie, fusses much longer 00:04:24.740 --> 00:04:26.960 align:middle line:84% over my head than my head merits, 00:04:26.960 --> 00:04:30.260 align:middle line:84% which allows me to be grateful without qualification. 00:04:30.260 --> 00:04:32.540 align:middle line:90% Could I be a little satisfied? 00:04:32.540 --> 00:04:36.560 align:middle line:84% There's a man who loves me, our dogs, 15, 20 more good years 00:04:36.560 --> 00:04:38.090 align:middle line:90% if I'm a bit careful. 00:04:38.090 --> 00:04:39.680 align:middle line:90% There's what I haven't written. 00:04:39.680 --> 00:04:41.690 align:middle line:90% It's sunny out though cold. 00:04:41.690 --> 00:04:44.270 align:middle line:84% After I tip Willie, I'm going down to Jane Street 00:04:44.270 --> 00:04:46.100 align:middle line:84% to a coffee shop I like, and then I'm 00:04:46.100 --> 00:04:49.692 align:middle line:90% going to write this poem, then-- 00:04:49.692 --> 00:04:53.400 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:04:53.400 --> 00:04:56.430 align:middle line:90% So I notice it's great. 00:04:56.430 --> 00:04:58.170 align:middle line:84% When I read that poem in the West, 00:04:58.170 --> 00:05:00.120 align:middle line:84% everybody knows what I mean by aspens. 00:05:00.120 --> 00:05:02.610 align:middle line:84% In the East, just look at me like what. 00:05:02.610 --> 00:05:04.880 align:middle line:90% Thank you for getting that.