WEBVTT

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- So I'm going to read
the ghost of Ludlow that

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started this journey.

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And actually, it was
one of the places

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that I knew I had to see.

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As artists, we give
ourselves permission

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to write about places
we don't know, right?

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That's part of the advantage
of the imagination.

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But somehow I felt that I
needed to go to Ludlow Colorado

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to see this ghost town,
which is what it was.

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And there was actually
there's a monument there.

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And one of the
underground cellars, which

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is where the people perished.

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Maybe not that cellar,
but cellars like that.

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Because they were living
underground because they

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had been cast out of their
shacks by the mine owner.

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And so that's where they built
their own makeshift housing

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with the blankets.

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And so to protect themselves
from the elements,

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they built these cellars.

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And that's where they were.

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So when the folks that
came to light everything

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on fire, all the people
that were cut underground,

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they suffocated there.

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So there's one cellar.

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And I went there.

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I hired a research
assistant a young woman

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who drove me out there.

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I flew into Pueblo, Colorado,
and was about an hour away.

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And we drove down there.

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And then now came the challenges
that, well, I can't really

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write until I'm
actually in that cellar.

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I said, but do you want
to go down there together?

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I said, it feels like well, OK.

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Let's do it.

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So we open up this
cellar, this door.

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And we climb down.

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And it was so
claustrophobic and tiny.

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And the whole time I'm
thinking about the tragedy

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that happened there.

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And let me tell you.

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We lasted 30 seconds
because there

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was something about that space.

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And not just the cellar,
but the entire ghost town.

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The tragedy was still there.

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And which is why I began
to think about the way

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that the land is absorbing
all the damage that we do

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and all our crimes
that we commit.

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There in the land.

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Not just in the history
books, not just in memory.

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There in the land.

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And the way the land is
like is going to fight back.

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It's already fighting back.

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So 30 seconds later, we
just bolted out of there.

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And plus I was afraid, what
if that cellar door closes.

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We're going to be
stuck in here, right?

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So well, let's not.

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And she took all these
photographs really quickly.

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She took all these photographs.

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And then she mailed them to me.

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And they were so blurry.

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And I said to her, we
know they're useless.

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But why are they so blurry?

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She said, my hand was trembling.

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I was just so scared.

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So this is The Ghost of Ludlow.

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A century of
silence is violence.

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That winter a blizzard
a cold that crawled

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at the summit of the
crystal mountains

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and covered the foothills
with a crust of ice.

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Everything widened into bone.

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That clothesline
snapped like a branch.

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A warning shot can be
understood in any language.

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The entrance to the
coal mine dropped

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open like the mouth of
the skull without eyelids.

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Mining folk felt
safest underground.

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The pits were for
protection from the chill

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that has stretched into spring.

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The pit for protection
from the wind

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that kept the walls of each
tent shivering all night.

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The pits were for protection.

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And somehow, the
kettle still sang.

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Its burst of steam
a prize distraction

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inside the deadness of the tent.

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In the moment, it was
the thing with most life.

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It filled the small space with
breath and exhale so far away.

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From the hour, it would take
the first bullet and its lung.

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The horses crushed the quiet.

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Their nostrils flared.

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And suddenly, they looked
quite human in their rage.

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One foot sunk its hoof
into the face of a doll.

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An act so cruel, it had
to have been deliberate.

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The baby limbs
stretched out in shock.

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No mouth, no throat, no sound.

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The horse shook its
tail like a shrug.

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Few things gathered
the bodies in the camp.

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The game of baseball, a
marriage of questioning,

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a strike, and a
war, which darkened

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the light in the tents,
shadow upon shadow.

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The soldiers first,
then the smoke.

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And then the fall
of smothering sky.

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The pits so womb like.

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A refuge for the lambs while
the wolf devoured the tents.

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The sheep like--

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So sheep like in
their whiteness.

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So sheep like in their bleeding.

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The pits were for protection.

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One evening, the cook was
making stew in the caldron.

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A witch's brew said
the children who

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dared themselves to come near
enough to toss a pebble of coal

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in the pot.

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The rocks bounced
off the bellies

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of both caldron and cook.

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The man cursed, which only
made the children giggle.

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He chased them off with a spoon,
and made them laugh some more.

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To teach a lesson.

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He grabbed the
rabbit by the ears.

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It kicked, and splashed
as he submerged it

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under boiling water.

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He trapped it with the lid.

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The children screamed in terror
imagining the bunny swimming

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to the scalding soup only
to reach scalding metal.

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Grief for a dead
child sounds the same

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in Greek, or
Italian, or Spanish.

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Grief for 11 children
has no language.

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Only numbness.

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It hardens even the land.

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Fires dissipated.

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Battles ended.

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The miners rolled
their stories up

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and left the town of
Ludlow 100 years empty

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except for in an
abandoned row of shacks.

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Near the baseball
diamond, a memorial as

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neglected as the playing field.

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A memorial rings hollow.

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It's for the solace
of the living.

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To reach the dead.

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Walk toward the
structures still standing.

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Their windows still looking in.

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Listen closely for
the ghost of a woman

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tucking into bed the
ghost of her son.

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Lean in.

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That blunt sound you hear:

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The weight of a ghost of a kiss
as it passes through his head.

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The collapse of
absence into absence.

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