WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.460 align:middle line:90%


00:00:02.460 --> 00:00:05.580 align:middle line:84%
And this last poem is
called The Time Wars.

00:00:05.580 --> 00:00:16.830 align:middle line:84%
And it's about that
sound of escaping time

00:00:16.830 --> 00:00:20.040 align:middle line:84%
that you start to hear at a
certain point in your life.

00:00:20.040 --> 00:00:24.540 align:middle line:90%
And what do you do about it?

00:00:24.540 --> 00:00:27.990 align:middle line:84%
And in a way, you're
fighting the time wars.

00:00:27.990 --> 00:00:32.890 align:middle line:84%
However, you sort of construe
the battle with time.

00:00:32.890 --> 00:00:39.540 align:middle line:84%
And so this poem
is seven stanzas,

00:00:39.540 --> 00:00:43.270 align:middle line:84%
and each stanza has some kind
of representation of time in it.

00:00:43.270 --> 00:00:45.670 align:middle line:90%


00:00:45.670 --> 00:00:46.170 align:middle line:90%
Yeah.

00:00:46.170 --> 00:00:50.190 align:middle line:84%
So it's about how time
passes, and the things that we

00:00:50.190 --> 00:00:55.080 align:middle line:84%
do in order to try to
make it into eternity;

00:00:55.080 --> 00:00:58.170 align:middle line:90%
into luminous moments.

00:00:58.170 --> 00:01:01.080 align:middle line:90%
"The Time Wars."

00:01:01.080 --> 00:01:05.860 align:middle line:84%
"It was the winter we ate a
lot of oatmeal to stay warm.

00:01:05.860 --> 00:01:08.800 align:middle line:90%
We lived on 17th and G streets."

00:01:08.800 --> 00:01:10.800 align:middle line:84%
I was living in Washington
DC by the [INAUDIBLE]

00:01:10.800 --> 00:01:12.930 align:middle line:90%
when it [INAUDIBLE].

00:01:12.930 --> 00:01:16.910 align:middle line:84%
"It was the winter we ate a
lot of oatmeal to stay warm."

00:01:16.910 --> 00:01:20.064 align:middle line:84%
And I was reading the
letters of Virginia Woolf.

00:01:20.064 --> 00:01:22.380 align:middle line:84%
The letters of Virginia
Woolf are extremely

00:01:22.380 --> 00:01:25.110 align:middle line:84%
discouraging to read
because she's always

00:01:25.110 --> 00:01:28.410 align:middle line:84%
like having huge
depressions and migraines,

00:01:28.410 --> 00:01:29.970 align:middle line:90%
and going to bed for three days.

00:01:29.970 --> 00:01:32.100 align:middle line:84%
And she's always finishing
a book too, you know.

00:01:32.100 --> 00:01:37.937 align:middle line:90%
So you say what is wrong here?

00:01:37.937 --> 00:01:40.020 align:middle line:84%
She's suffering, she's
suffering, she's suffering,

00:01:40.020 --> 00:01:41.228 align:middle line:90%
and I finished a book Friday.

00:01:41.228 --> 00:01:44.090 align:middle line:90%


00:01:44.090 --> 00:01:48.200 align:middle line:90%
"So the time wars.

00:01:48.200 --> 00:01:52.680 align:middle line:84%
It was the winter we ate a
lot of oatmeal to stay warm.

00:01:52.680 --> 00:01:56.030 align:middle line:90%
We lived on 17th and G streets.

00:01:56.030 --> 00:01:57.410 align:middle line:90%
Kath called it the G spot.

00:01:57.410 --> 00:02:00.110 align:middle line:90%


00:02:00.110 --> 00:02:03.410 align:middle line:84%
At night in the bathtub, I
read the collected letters

00:02:03.410 --> 00:02:08.900 align:middle line:84%
of Virginia Woolf trying to keep
the pages of 20th century prose

00:02:08.900 --> 00:02:12.740 align:middle line:84%
from getting wet, reading the
guest lists for her dinner

00:02:12.740 --> 00:02:16.100 align:middle line:84%
parties as she knocked
out book after book

00:02:16.100 --> 00:02:20.470 align:middle line:84%
between her shattering
depressions.

00:02:20.470 --> 00:02:23.080 align:middle line:84%
Sometimes I would meet
Richard at the Chinese place

00:02:23.080 --> 00:02:24.820 align:middle line:90%
for dinner.

00:02:24.820 --> 00:02:30.010 align:middle line:84%
And one, two, three hours
would vanish like our food.

00:02:30.010 --> 00:02:34.450 align:middle line:84%
We would stand outside the
Great Wall adjusting our scarves

00:02:34.450 --> 00:02:37.810 align:middle line:84%
in a pastoral moment
of urban separation,

00:02:37.810 --> 00:02:42.340 align:middle line:84%
watching the cabs
whiz by in the dark.

00:02:42.340 --> 00:02:46.660 align:middle line:84%
The Vietnam War monument
was just five blocks away.

00:02:46.660 --> 00:02:50.350 align:middle line:84%
On Saturday, you would
always see a vet or two

00:02:50.350 --> 00:02:53.590 align:middle line:84%
in their windbreakers
and baseball caps,

00:02:53.590 --> 00:02:56.740 align:middle line:84%
heads down, crying
in the shrubs.

00:02:56.740 --> 00:03:00.130 align:middle line:84%
A little POW buttons
and various insignia

00:03:00.130 --> 00:03:02.290 align:middle line:84%
attached to their
clothing like they

00:03:02.290 --> 00:03:05.350 align:middle line:90%
were advertising something.

00:03:05.350 --> 00:03:08.950 align:middle line:84%
We ourselves were
fighting the time wars.

00:03:08.950 --> 00:03:12.430 align:middle line:84%
All of us could feel
it speeding up, rapidly

00:03:12.430 --> 00:03:16.570 align:middle line:84%
escaping like the hiss
from a leaky balloon.

00:03:16.570 --> 00:03:21.190 align:middle line:84%
We were trying to plug it, to
slow it down, to decelerate,

00:03:21.190 --> 00:03:25.120 align:middle line:84%
but none of us was
having much success.

00:03:25.120 --> 00:03:28.810 align:middle line:84%
One day in February, Kath
brought in some roses

00:03:28.810 --> 00:03:33.370 align:middle line:84%
and said here, the sun
came 93 million miles

00:03:33.370 --> 00:03:35.770 align:middle line:84%
to make these flowers
that I killed for you.

00:03:35.770 --> 00:03:39.490 align:middle line:90%


00:03:39.490 --> 00:03:43.240 align:middle line:84%
And I said, Kathleen,
my talents are not

00:03:43.240 --> 00:03:48.610 align:middle line:84%
capacious enough to properly
exaggerate your virtues.

00:03:48.610 --> 00:03:51.490 align:middle line:84%
And we both burst
out laughing and time

00:03:51.490 --> 00:03:56.740 align:middle line:84%
stopped right over our
heads like a little red car.

00:03:56.740 --> 00:04:02.980 align:middle line:84%
On June 14, 1940, Virginia Woolf
wrote in her journal: Windy

00:04:02.980 --> 00:04:04.330 align:middle line:90%
day.

00:04:04.330 --> 00:04:10.390 align:middle line:84%
I am the hare, far ahead
of my critics, the hounds.

00:04:10.390 --> 00:04:13.150 align:middle line:84%
Something endearing
about the mixture

00:04:13.150 --> 00:04:17.019 align:middle line:90%
of weather report and vanity.

00:04:17.019 --> 00:04:19.734 align:middle line:84%
Something lonely about
this image of success.

00:04:19.734 --> 00:04:22.240 align:middle line:90%


00:04:22.240 --> 00:04:26.790 align:middle line:84%
We ourselves aren't thinking
about the future anymore.

00:04:26.790 --> 00:04:30.910 align:middle line:84%
What we want is to calm
time down to get time

00:04:30.910 --> 00:04:35.980 align:middle line:84%
in a good mood, to
make time feel wanted.

00:04:35.980 --> 00:04:40.780 align:middle line:84%
We just want to give time
many homemade gifts covered

00:04:40.780 --> 00:04:43.740 align:middle line:90%
with fingerprints and kisses."

00:04:43.740 --> 00:04:45.000 align:middle line:90%