WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.009 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.009 --> 00:00:06.040 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read a poem that's a bit longer, 00:00:06.040 --> 00:00:10.680 align:middle line:84% and that is not triggered by the Science Times, 00:00:10.680 --> 00:00:14.280 align:middle line:84% but from a trip that my husband Harold and I 00:00:14.280 --> 00:00:20.160 align:middle line:84% took as we were driving West, and through Tennessee. 00:00:20.160 --> 00:00:25.630 align:middle line:90% 00:00:25.630 --> 00:00:31.465 align:middle line:84% We noticed that there was Sweetwater caverns on our map 00:00:31.465 --> 00:00:32.590 align:middle line:90% as we were driving through. 00:00:32.590 --> 00:00:36.760 align:middle line:84% And we wanted to see the world's second-largest underground 00:00:36.760 --> 00:00:42.190 align:middle line:90% lake, so we did. 00:00:42.190 --> 00:00:43.375 align:middle line:90% "The Sweetwater Caverns." 00:00:43.375 --> 00:00:46.810 align:middle line:90% 00:00:46.810 --> 00:00:50.620 align:middle line:84% "Curious to see caverns, we detoured in Tennessee 00:00:50.620 --> 00:00:53.680 align:middle line:84% to ramble through Fat Man's Misery, 00:00:53.680 --> 00:00:56.950 align:middle line:84% past a ballroom and gunpowder machine, 00:00:56.950 --> 00:01:00.970 align:middle line:84% till we reached The World's Second Largest Underground 00:01:00.970 --> 00:01:03.820 align:middle line:84% Lake, on which my husband had promised 00:01:03.820 --> 00:01:07.390 align:middle line:90% a ride in a glass-bottom boat. 00:01:07.390 --> 00:01:10.930 align:middle line:84% There, a kid hunched over a hot rod magazine. 00:01:10.930 --> 00:01:14.290 align:middle line:84% Dan, I think his name was, radiant, 00:01:14.290 --> 00:01:17.320 align:middle line:90% in clammy, artificial light. 00:01:17.320 --> 00:01:20.290 align:middle line:90% I asked Dan, college break? 00:01:20.290 --> 00:01:23.230 align:middle line:84% He nodded inside his hoodie, then helped me 00:01:23.230 --> 00:01:25.780 align:middle line:90% into the glass-bottom hold. 00:01:25.780 --> 00:01:28.660 align:middle line:84% I peered into the milky water, and watched 00:01:28.660 --> 00:01:32.650 align:middle line:84% the seeded trout swim up for the chum he dumped over 00:01:32.650 --> 00:01:34.540 align:middle line:90% on our account. 00:01:34.540 --> 00:01:40.270 align:middle line:84% He was milky white, himself, from months of cave sitting. 00:01:40.270 --> 00:01:45.430 align:middle line:84% I wondered if he'd write a poem on a summer spent underground. 00:01:45.430 --> 00:01:47.260 align:middle line:90% Thought to suggest it-- 00:01:47.260 --> 00:01:52.990 align:middle line:84% how foolish-- then wondered if what I really wanted was Dan, 00:01:52.990 --> 00:01:57.040 align:middle line:84% as I stepped into his boat, to take my arm and ask me 00:01:57.040 --> 00:02:03.100 align:middle line:84% something at this middle age, probably for a couple coins, 00:02:03.100 --> 00:02:07.570 align:middle line:84% then give me a promise of safe passage as he ferried me 00:02:07.570 --> 00:02:11.320 align:middle line:84% to the realm of the dead that I've been thinking about 00:02:11.320 --> 00:02:16.060 align:middle line:84% for several years not because of a girlfriend's cancer, 00:02:16.060 --> 00:02:19.180 align:middle line:84% but because my body is no longer young-- 00:02:19.180 --> 00:02:23.740 align:middle line:84% I mean, lovely-- and that there's no turning back 00:02:23.740 --> 00:02:25.840 align:middle line:90% to that water's edge. 00:02:25.840 --> 00:02:29.440 align:middle line:84% There's only the couch every afternoon at 4 o'clock, 00:02:29.440 --> 00:02:31.900 align:middle line:90% and not wanting to ever move. 00:02:31.900 --> 00:02:34.660 align:middle line:84% Not wishing to die, exactly, just not 00:02:34.660 --> 00:02:39.740 align:middle line:84% wanting to rise because the light feels so pressured. 00:02:39.740 --> 00:02:42.310 align:middle line:84% And I can't have that ardent glow 00:02:42.310 --> 00:02:47.770 align:middle line:84% reflected back while brushing my teeth or fastening a necklace. 00:02:47.770 --> 00:02:52.570 align:middle line:84% Now there's this casting around for other stuff, the daughter's 00:02:52.570 --> 00:02:57.400 align:middle line:84% secrets, the pathetic urge to write about their secrets, 00:02:57.400 --> 00:03:00.220 align:middle line:90% or a crush on Charon. 00:03:00.220 --> 00:03:04.150 align:middle line:84% Not an old man, as it turns out, but a youth, 00:03:04.150 --> 00:03:07.510 align:middle line:84% colorless, and tired of his iPod. 00:03:07.510 --> 00:03:11.020 align:middle line:84% No, he's not really of interest to me. 00:03:11.020 --> 00:03:13.000 align:middle line:90% And this is my secret-- 00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:16.900 align:middle line:84% that I wish he were, as with those arms 00:03:16.900 --> 00:03:18.880 align:middle line:84% reaching through clouds of cigarette 00:03:18.880 --> 00:03:23.020 align:middle line:84% smoke to lead me into reeking dives. 00:03:23.020 --> 00:03:24.490 align:middle line:90% I'm past that. 00:03:24.490 --> 00:03:28.750 align:middle line:84% And he, Dan, not the poetic Charon, 00:03:28.750 --> 00:03:30.880 align:middle line:84% will probably climb out of the caverns 00:03:30.880 --> 00:03:36.190 align:middle line:84% into the 6 o'clock evening sun, stretch, change his shirt, 00:03:36.190 --> 00:03:38.170 align:middle line:84% eat his mother's meatloaf, and head off 00:03:38.170 --> 00:03:41.380 align:middle line:84% in a rusted Honda for the Piggly-Wiggly parking 00:03:41.380 --> 00:03:48.160 align:middle line:84% lot with a six-pack and a girl, those hand-sized moths flitting 00:03:48.160 --> 00:03:50.830 align:middle line:84% in the light as the sheriff chases 00:03:50.830 --> 00:03:54.430 align:middle line:84% the kids to another dead end spot, 00:03:54.430 --> 00:03:58.240 align:middle line:84% those enormous dusty moths my husband caught 00:03:58.240 --> 00:04:02.050 align:middle line:84% for me to hold in my hand because he knows, 00:04:02.050 --> 00:04:05.530 align:middle line:84% in the afternoon light after the dank caverns, 00:04:05.530 --> 00:04:10.000 align:middle line:84% how fluttery the furry wings will feel, 00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:14.320 align:middle line:84% which is more than melodrama can bear. 00:04:14.320 --> 00:04:19.089 align:middle line:84% To have wished for Dan, to 'ask me something,' I know 00:04:19.089 --> 00:04:23.160 align:middle line:84% 'the passage' is not what you wanted to hear." 00:04:23.160 --> 00:04:24.000 align:middle line:90%