WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.680 align:middle line:90%


00:00:00.680 --> 00:00:03.655 align:middle line:90%
"Dark Tuning."

00:00:03.655 --> 00:00:06.320 align:middle line:90%
This is a poem for Jamaal.

00:00:06.320 --> 00:00:08.640 align:middle line:90%
"Dark Tuning."

00:00:08.640 --> 00:00:10.860 align:middle line:84%
"The hearing aid was
still warm from his ear

00:00:10.860 --> 00:00:12.600 align:middle line:90%
when he slipped it into mine.

00:00:12.600 --> 00:00:15.270 align:middle line:84%
And what I remember
isn't the brief blazing

00:00:15.270 --> 00:00:17.310 align:middle line:84%
of his fingers
along my ear lobe,

00:00:17.310 --> 00:00:19.500 align:middle line:90%
but that he turned away after.

00:00:19.500 --> 00:00:23.160 align:middle line:84%
Which seemed right, since we
should be alone the first time

00:00:23.160 --> 00:00:25.830 align:middle line:84%
we're allowed the
frequency of each unheard

00:00:25.830 --> 00:00:28.580 align:middle line:90%
percussion in this world.

00:00:28.580 --> 00:00:30.860 align:middle line:84%
I could have stayed in
those tangling songs

00:00:30.860 --> 00:00:32.509 align:middle line:90%
for longer than I'll ever live.

00:00:32.509 --> 00:00:36.710 align:middle line:84%
Like hours I'd wait standing on
Congress Ave. for the horizon

00:00:36.710 --> 00:00:40.910 align:middle line:84%
to harden into the violet
of bats unskinning the sky

00:00:40.910 --> 00:00:43.640 align:middle line:90%
into a mantle of noiselessness.

00:00:43.640 --> 00:00:45.950 align:middle line:84%
As a child, I
understood that the dark

00:00:45.950 --> 00:00:49.280 align:middle line:84%
turning I saw hanging from
a ledge in Carlsbad Caverns

00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:50.390 align:middle line:90%
was love.

00:00:50.390 --> 00:00:53.750 align:middle line:84%
Two bats climbing
instinctively into each other,

00:00:53.750 --> 00:00:56.930 align:middle line:84%
closing themselves
into a soundless eight

00:00:56.930 --> 00:01:00.260 align:middle line:84%
chambered hymn only
they could shatter.

00:01:00.260 --> 00:01:04.340 align:middle line:84%
I understand now it takes a
village of savage stalactites

00:01:04.340 --> 00:01:08.270 align:middle line:84%
to show me I live for the
dripping and speechless ache.

00:01:08.270 --> 00:01:10.940 align:middle line:90%
For the vault of your mouth.

00:01:10.940 --> 00:01:14.900 align:middle line:84%
If love is learning to gnaw
and be gnawed, to be stringed

00:01:14.900 --> 00:01:18.260 align:middle line:84%
and strung up, let me be
your unformed instrument.

00:01:18.260 --> 00:01:22.280 align:middle line:84%
Be the steadfast eyes of the
luthier, bent in lamplight,

00:01:22.280 --> 00:01:27.020 align:middle line:84%
who contours this excess away
from me so that the melodies

00:01:27.020 --> 00:01:28.970 align:middle line:90%
you know, I will echo.

00:01:28.970 --> 00:01:32.500 align:middle line:90%
Even in this quiet, will echo."

00:01:32.500 --> 00:01:33.000 align:middle line:90%