WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.170 align:middle line:90% 00:00:03.170 --> 00:00:04.050 align:middle line:90% Good evening. 00:00:04.050 --> 00:00:08.130 align:middle line:90% Welcome, everybody. 00:00:08.130 --> 00:00:10.100 align:middle line:84% Before we get started, I'd like to announce 00:00:10.100 --> 00:00:12.860 align:middle line:84% that the new issue of the Sonora Review 00:00:12.860 --> 00:00:16.790 align:middle line:84% will be for sale after the reading as will old issues 00:00:16.790 --> 00:00:19.830 align:middle line:90% out by the refreshment area. 00:00:19.830 --> 00:00:21.540 align:middle line:90% So take advantage of that. 00:00:21.540 --> 00:00:25.610 align:middle line:84% We also have copies of Boyer Rickel's book, Arreboles, 00:00:25.610 --> 00:00:28.400 align:middle line:84% just out from Wesleyan University Press. 00:00:28.400 --> 00:00:35.120 align:middle line:84% And that's for sale also by ASUA bookstore 10% off 00:00:35.120 --> 00:00:37.970 align:middle line:84% if you are a faculty or student or staff 00:00:37.970 --> 00:00:39.738 align:middle line:90% of the University of Arizona. 00:00:39.738 --> 00:00:42.880 align:middle line:90% 00:00:42.880 --> 00:00:45.130 align:middle line:84% Donald Hall has said that the history 00:00:45.130 --> 00:00:47.350 align:middle line:84% of writing, of literature is also 00:00:47.350 --> 00:00:50.200 align:middle line:90% the history of friendships. 00:00:50.200 --> 00:00:53.710 align:middle line:84% He was speaking I think of the encouragement writers give one 00:00:53.710 --> 00:00:59.260 align:middle line:84% another, whether in an academic or a more informal situation, 00:00:59.260 --> 00:01:02.620 align:middle line:84% of the audience we give each other, those of us who 00:01:02.620 --> 00:01:06.250 align:middle line:84% are committed to that perpetual apprenticeship, which 00:01:06.250 --> 00:01:09.010 align:middle line:90% is the writing life. 00:01:09.010 --> 00:01:11.620 align:middle line:84% So it's a happy night that we are here 00:01:11.620 --> 00:01:17.020 align:middle line:84% to celebrate the publication of Boyer Rickel's first book, 00:01:17.020 --> 00:01:21.220 align:middle line:84% because he's been an educator whose specialization is 00:01:21.220 --> 00:01:24.280 align:middle line:84% encouragement, and a friend who's 00:01:24.280 --> 00:01:27.610 align:middle line:84% been, for many, that kind of careful reader 00:01:27.610 --> 00:01:30.970 align:middle line:90% we all need and want. 00:01:30.970 --> 00:01:33.490 align:middle line:84% Boyer's poems have appeared in such journals 00:01:33.490 --> 00:01:38.890 align:middle line:84% as Antioch Review, Field, Poetry, and The Yale Review. 00:01:38.890 --> 00:01:42.910 align:middle line:84% His book is just out from Wesleyan University Press. 00:01:42.910 --> 00:01:46.540 align:middle line:84% He's recently won a $5,000 poetry writing 00:01:46.540 --> 00:01:49.300 align:middle line:84% fellowship from the Arizona Commission on the Arts. 00:01:49.300 --> 00:01:51.820 align:middle line:84% Rumor has it he hopes to spend it 00:01:51.820 --> 00:01:55.600 align:middle line:84% in Italy with great style in the near future. 00:01:55.600 --> 00:01:58.450 align:middle line:90% We hope that rumor is accurate. 00:01:58.450 --> 00:02:02.830 align:middle line:84% He also received an honorable mention from the Tucson Pima 00:02:02.830 --> 00:02:05.260 align:middle line:84% Arts Council Fellowship Competition, 00:02:05.260 --> 00:02:08.470 align:middle line:84% and has been recently nominated as one 00:02:08.470 --> 00:02:12.160 align:middle line:84% of 15 national artists of various disciplines 00:02:12.160 --> 00:02:17.230 align:middle line:84% for the Doers White Label Emerging Artists Award. 00:02:17.230 --> 00:02:18.985 align:middle line:90% Please welcome Boyer Rickel. 00:02:18.985 --> 00:02:22.144 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:02:22.144 --> 00:02:30.870 align:middle line:90% 00:02:30.870 --> 00:02:32.880 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:02:32.880 --> 00:02:38.706 align:middle line:84% The last few weeks, the last couple of days 00:02:38.706 --> 00:02:40.140 align:middle line:90% have been a little boggling. 00:02:40.140 --> 00:02:42.690 align:middle line:84% There have been a lot of photographs and newspapers 00:02:42.690 --> 00:02:48.630 align:middle line:84% and articles and it's been almost unnerving. 00:02:48.630 --> 00:02:52.270 align:middle line:84% People have started asking me who my publicist is. 00:02:52.270 --> 00:02:56.505 align:middle line:90% And in fact, I have a publicist. 00:02:56.505 --> 00:02:59.280 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:59.280 --> 00:03:04.410 align:middle line:84% If you saw one of the photographs announcing 00:03:04.410 --> 00:03:08.250 align:middle line:84% the reading in which there was a big white dog sitting next 00:03:08.250 --> 00:03:13.260 align:middle line:84% to me, my career is in her hands. 00:03:13.260 --> 00:03:17.440 align:middle line:84% She pulls all the strings and I do whatever she says. 00:03:17.440 --> 00:03:20.380 align:middle line:84% It really is wonderful to be here, and a lot of people 00:03:20.380 --> 00:03:27.020 align:middle line:84% have said very kind things to me about recent successes, 00:03:27.020 --> 00:03:29.495 align:middle line:90% and I'm very grateful. 00:03:29.495 --> 00:03:33.380 align:middle line:84% If wishes can make things work out well, 00:03:33.380 --> 00:03:36.290 align:middle line:84% the evening should go very well indeed because many of you 00:03:36.290 --> 00:03:37.890 align:middle line:90% have been very good to me. 00:03:37.890 --> 00:03:41.720 align:middle line:84% I want to start by reading a poem that 00:03:41.720 --> 00:03:45.740 align:middle line:84% grows out of some recent prose I've been writing. 00:03:45.740 --> 00:03:49.670 align:middle line:84% I've been working on childhood stories the last year 00:03:49.670 --> 00:03:52.640 align:middle line:90% and a half in nonfiction pieces. 00:03:52.640 --> 00:03:57.740 align:middle line:84% And in that process of going back 25, 30, 35 years 00:03:57.740 --> 00:04:03.800 align:middle line:84% and finding the stories that gave the form to a life, 00:04:03.800 --> 00:04:09.500 align:middle line:84% my life, I've discovered, as many, many writers and others 00:04:09.500 --> 00:04:11.780 align:middle line:84% before me have, that when you ask 00:04:11.780 --> 00:04:14.300 align:middle line:84% others who were involved in those kinds of events, 00:04:14.300 --> 00:04:16.880 align:middle line:84% those family events what happened, 00:04:16.880 --> 00:04:20.910 align:middle line:84% that each will have a very different story. 00:04:20.910 --> 00:04:24.920 align:middle line:84% Each of us will have created a meaningful story, 00:04:24.920 --> 00:04:27.530 align:middle line:84% but one that is somewhat personal. 00:04:27.530 --> 00:04:30.305 align:middle line:84% The characters will have even switched around. 00:04:30.305 --> 00:04:31.940 align:middle line:84% No, you didn't fall out of the car. 00:04:31.940 --> 00:04:34.610 align:middle line:90% I fell out of the car. 00:04:34.610 --> 00:04:38.130 align:middle line:90% It goes on and on. 00:04:38.130 --> 00:04:42.275 align:middle line:84% So this poem sort of addresses those complications of memory. 00:04:42.275 --> 00:04:46.560 align:middle line:90% 00:04:46.560 --> 00:04:49.580 align:middle line:84% And there are a couple of places where people speak-- 00:04:49.580 --> 00:04:53.730 align:middle line:84% without the text in front of you might not be obvious. 00:04:53.730 --> 00:04:55.730 align:middle line:84% So the first time I go like, that it's 00:04:55.730 --> 00:04:59.240 align:middle line:84% my brother, and the second time it's my aunt. 00:04:59.240 --> 00:05:02.513 align:middle line:84% I have dispensed with he said she said, which works 00:05:02.513 --> 00:05:03.680 align:middle line:90% when you see it on the page. 00:05:03.680 --> 00:05:07.650 align:middle line:90% The poem is titled "Exactly." 00:05:07.650 --> 00:05:12.330 align:middle line:84% "No one remembers what the hour was, simply 00:05:12.330 --> 00:05:14.870 align:middle line:90% that it was morning. 00:05:14.870 --> 00:05:18.800 align:middle line:84% Rushing her things together in a pile in a suitcase, 00:05:18.800 --> 00:05:21.950 align:middle line:84% my brother offering a blanket as my mother 00:05:21.950 --> 00:05:24.710 align:middle line:84% slid down on the cool vinyl car seat, 00:05:24.710 --> 00:05:27.430 align:middle line:90% in case your water breaks. 00:05:27.430 --> 00:05:32.080 align:middle line:84% I've always imagined absurdly that in that small Mormon town 00:05:32.080 --> 00:05:38.180 align:middle line:84% mid-century, the family rode in a taxi, my father at the wheel. 00:05:38.180 --> 00:05:41.720 align:middle line:84% I had time for breakfast, my mother remembers, 00:05:41.720 --> 00:05:44.720 align:middle line:84% or I didn't have time for breakfast. 00:05:44.720 --> 00:05:48.830 align:middle line:84% I can never remember what she says she remembers. 00:05:48.830 --> 00:05:53.210 align:middle line:84% To do my astrological chart, of course, Aunt Olga in her '80s, 00:05:53.210 --> 00:05:55.310 align:middle line:90% must know the time exactly. 00:05:55.310 --> 00:05:58.730 align:middle line:90% It makes all the difference. 00:05:58.730 --> 00:06:01.760 align:middle line:84% The certificate is no help, and the hospital now 00:06:01.760 --> 00:06:05.320 align:middle line:84% gone to the wrecking ball for a strip mall. 00:06:05.320 --> 00:06:07.690 align:middle line:84% No delivery room can I ever imagine, 00:06:07.690 --> 00:06:10.600 align:middle line:84% no doctor certainly putting his hands 00:06:10.600 --> 00:06:13.270 align:middle line:84% in that place in my mother, no image 00:06:13.270 --> 00:06:17.260 align:middle line:84% of the first time I was brought to her bed wiped clean, 00:06:17.260 --> 00:06:20.320 align:middle line:84% wrapped no doubt in a soft blue blanket, 00:06:20.320 --> 00:06:22.720 align:middle line:90% or of my father standing by. 00:06:22.720 --> 00:06:26.320 align:middle line:84% The tiny me burning never, never, 00:06:26.320 --> 00:06:28.285 align:middle line:90% never to leave her side." 00:06:28.285 --> 00:06:32.680 align:middle line:90% 00:06:32.680 --> 00:06:38.140 align:middle line:84% Well my brother who was so very helpful the day of my birth 00:06:38.140 --> 00:06:42.430 align:middle line:84% remained very helpful throughout my early childhood 00:06:42.430 --> 00:06:45.640 align:middle line:84% until I figured it out at about age 12. 00:06:45.640 --> 00:06:47.440 align:middle line:90% He was four years older. 00:06:47.440 --> 00:06:50.680 align:middle line:84% So I depended a great deal on him. 00:06:50.680 --> 00:06:53.220 align:middle line:90% He was my hero. 00:06:53.220 --> 00:06:57.910 align:middle line:84% I respected and counted on and I asked him in fact 00:06:57.910 --> 00:06:59.750 align:middle line:90% to be my teacher. 00:06:59.750 --> 00:07:03.640 align:middle line:84% There were things that I didn't understand about being a guy. 00:07:03.640 --> 00:07:07.210 align:middle line:84% And he had lots of friends and seemed always 00:07:07.210 --> 00:07:08.990 align:middle line:90% to know how to do things. 00:07:08.990 --> 00:07:12.370 align:middle line:84% So I would ask him to teach me, and he would always 00:07:12.370 --> 00:07:14.680 align:middle line:90% say, yes, if I would pay him. 00:07:14.680 --> 00:07:17.050 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:07:17.050 --> 00:07:19.390 align:middle line:90% And I didn't know any better. 00:07:19.390 --> 00:07:22.510 align:middle line:84% I figured that's the way brothers worked. 00:07:22.510 --> 00:07:24.850 align:middle line:90% And so I would agree. 00:07:24.850 --> 00:07:28.270 align:middle line:90% And oh, an example. 00:07:28.270 --> 00:07:32.350 align:middle line:90% 00:07:32.350 --> 00:07:35.380 align:middle line:84% When you're seven, eight years old, at least 00:07:35.380 --> 00:07:36.880 align:middle line:84% when I was seven or eight years old, 00:07:36.880 --> 00:07:39.880 align:middle line:84% it seemed very important to know how to do cool things like make 00:07:39.880 --> 00:07:41.560 align:middle line:90% arm farts. 00:07:41.560 --> 00:07:43.720 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:07:43.720 --> 00:07:45.970 align:middle line:84% He figured that was worth about three weeks allowance. 00:07:45.970 --> 00:07:50.730 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:07:50.730 --> 00:07:53.850 align:middle line:90% I didn't see much allowance. 00:07:53.850 --> 00:07:54.480 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:07:54.480 --> 00:07:57.970 align:middle line:84% He was also the person I turned to then when 00:07:57.970 --> 00:08:00.160 align:middle line:84% I didn't understand a word, I would ask him 00:08:00.160 --> 00:08:01.840 align:middle line:90% for the meanings of words. 00:08:01.840 --> 00:08:04.390 align:middle line:90% And he made me pay for that too. 00:08:04.390 --> 00:08:07.210 align:middle line:90% And this poem is about that. 00:08:07.210 --> 00:08:09.550 align:middle line:84% It's titled "Education of the Poet." 00:08:09.550 --> 00:08:14.990 align:middle line:90% 00:08:14.990 --> 00:08:16.670 align:middle line:90% "I must have been four. 00:08:16.670 --> 00:08:22.220 align:middle line:84% Our California summer, a broken tamarisk in our sandy backyard, 00:08:22.220 --> 00:08:25.340 align:middle line:84% the sight of many mysteries, diarrhea 00:08:25.340 --> 00:08:29.330 align:middle line:84% of a hobo dribbled at its foot, the foot of a gopher 00:08:29.330 --> 00:08:32.090 align:middle line:84% chewed off in a trap my, father said, 00:08:32.090 --> 00:08:35.659 align:middle line:84% who grew ill at sight of this work of his hands. 00:08:35.659 --> 00:08:39.980 align:middle line:84% Hands that at the piano keyboard played the same Bach four note 00:08:39.980 --> 00:08:45.110 align:middle line:84% phrase 100 times to hear the possibilities. 00:08:45.110 --> 00:08:50.830 align:middle line:84% I heard beneath the tamarisk my brother's explanations. 00:08:50.830 --> 00:08:57.490 align:middle line:84% Prevent, he said, means to start something, to begin it-- 00:08:57.490 --> 00:09:01.090 align:middle line:84% in answer to my question about Smokey the Bear, 00:09:01.090 --> 00:09:02.965 align:middle line:84% only you can prevent forest fires. 00:09:02.965 --> 00:09:05.860 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:09:05.860 --> 00:09:12.820 align:middle line:84% Only you can start forest fires, I said to myself over and over, 00:09:12.820 --> 00:09:16.310 align:middle line:84% head down, adjusting to the weight, 00:09:16.310 --> 00:09:17.830 align:middle line:84% this was a world of responsibility. 00:09:17.830 --> 00:09:21.490 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:09:21.490 --> 00:09:24.820 align:middle line:84% These were the days when Buffalo heads and Mercurys could still 00:09:24.820 --> 00:09:27.910 align:middle line:84% be found in dime store change and steel pennies 00:09:27.910 --> 00:09:32.770 align:middle line:84% from World War II blackened as if charred by war's fires. 00:09:32.770 --> 00:09:36.160 align:middle line:84% Our cardboard coin albums with punched out circles 00:09:36.160 --> 00:09:39.070 align:middle line:84% seemed valuable according to their weights. 00:09:39.070 --> 00:09:42.790 align:middle line:84% As pages filled, the albums grew heavier, difficult for me 00:09:42.790 --> 00:09:45.910 align:middle line:84% to handle, reaching on my toes to slide them 00:09:45.910 --> 00:09:48.160 align:middle line:90% from the bookcase shelf. 00:09:48.160 --> 00:09:50.470 align:middle line:84% Home from shopping trips, we race 00:09:50.470 --> 00:09:53.740 align:middle line:84% to see who could empty dad's trouser pockets, who 00:09:53.740 --> 00:09:57.280 align:middle line:84% could squeeze open mom's green football shaped coin 00:09:57.280 --> 00:10:01.360 align:middle line:84% purse first, matching coins with their values 00:10:01.360 --> 00:10:06.190 align:middle line:84% in the red collector's book, a book with new words like mint 00:10:06.190 --> 00:10:12.880 align:middle line:84% condition, uncirculated, and priceless, which as my brother 00:10:12.880 --> 00:10:17.830 align:middle line:84% explained, meant a thing was of so little value. 00:10:17.830 --> 00:10:20.050 align:middle line:90% it was worthless. 00:10:20.050 --> 00:10:23.770 align:middle line:84% If I found one, I should simply hand it over to him." 00:10:23.770 --> 00:10:28.070 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:10:28.070 --> 00:10:29.870 align:middle line:90% We both remember this. 00:10:29.870 --> 00:10:33.970 align:middle line:84% This is not something he has forgotten. 00:10:33.970 --> 00:10:35.740 align:middle line:90% He's a successful realtor. 00:10:35.740 --> 00:10:39.220 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:10:39.220 --> 00:10:40.720 align:middle line:90% And I stand here tonight. 00:10:40.720 --> 00:10:45.950 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:10:45.950 --> 00:10:47.980 align:middle line:90% That's true. 00:10:47.980 --> 00:10:53.350 align:middle line:84% Well, I'm going to jump coasts and about 25 years, 00:10:53.350 --> 00:10:57.910 align:middle line:90% read a poem from the book-- 00:10:57.910 --> 00:11:04.300 align:middle line:84% if I can find it, titled "Two Mothers in The Cloisters." 00:11:04.300 --> 00:11:06.730 align:middle line:84% If you're not familiar with The Cloisters, 00:11:06.730 --> 00:11:10.210 align:middle line:84% it's an extension of the Metropolitan Museum. 00:11:10.210 --> 00:11:15.730 align:middle line:84% It's on the upper end of the Manhattan Island 00:11:15.730 --> 00:11:19.510 align:middle line:84% in a beautiful park overlooking the Hudson River. 00:11:19.510 --> 00:11:21.310 align:middle line:84% Somewhere around the turn of the century, 00:11:21.310 --> 00:11:25.270 align:middle line:84% somebody got some parts of cloisters from Europe 00:11:25.270 --> 00:11:26.860 align:middle line:84% and brought them to America, which 00:11:26.860 --> 00:11:29.500 align:middle line:84% is what people were able to do, I suppose, with lots 00:11:29.500 --> 00:11:33.340 align:middle line:84% of money in America then, and put them together beautifully. 00:11:33.340 --> 00:11:36.520 align:middle line:84% Collected a remarkable medieval art collection 00:11:36.520 --> 00:11:39.820 align:middle line:84% and housed it there and then at some point, 00:11:39.820 --> 00:11:43.120 align:middle line:84% it ended up in the hands of the Metropolitan Museum. 00:11:43.120 --> 00:11:48.200 align:middle line:84% I went there one day by myself some years ago. 00:11:48.200 --> 00:11:49.540 align:middle line:90% It was my first visit there. 00:11:49.540 --> 00:11:52.600 align:middle line:84% You go to the very end of a subway line. 00:11:52.600 --> 00:11:55.420 align:middle line:84% And then you walk through beautiful park. 00:11:55.420 --> 00:11:57.160 align:middle line:90% And it was pretty magical. 00:11:57.160 --> 00:11:58.857 align:middle line:90% The artists is pretty powerful. 00:11:58.857 --> 00:12:00.940 align:middle line:84% Some of the pieces there are real important to me. 00:12:00.940 --> 00:12:04.780 align:middle line:84% But I had had a very disturbing dream that day 00:12:04.780 --> 00:12:07.150 align:middle line:84% which ended up mixing in with some of the things 00:12:07.150 --> 00:12:09.400 align:middle line:84% that I saw in the museum and some of the things 00:12:09.400 --> 00:12:10.570 align:middle line:90% that happened to me there. 00:12:10.570 --> 00:12:14.110 align:middle line:84% And some years later, it became a poem titled 00:12:14.110 --> 00:12:17.760 align:middle line:90% "Two Mothers in the Cloisters". 00:12:17.760 --> 00:12:23.110 align:middle line:84% "One eye half covered by the lid, the other open 00:12:23.110 --> 00:12:24.520 align:middle line:90% to the world. 00:12:24.520 --> 00:12:28.420 align:middle line:84% The cracked 500-year-old Madonna, 00:12:28.420 --> 00:12:32.260 align:middle line:84% a headless baby in her arms, smiled, 00:12:32.260 --> 00:12:35.710 align:middle line:84% while the other mother, gray and gap-toothed 00:12:35.710 --> 00:12:40.600 align:middle line:84% talked about her crazy son to anyone who'd listen. 00:12:40.600 --> 00:12:44.740 align:middle line:84% Her voice broke off and I could see the Madonna had no feet, 00:12:44.740 --> 00:12:49.040 align:middle line:84% and the guide ropes were covered in sky blue velvet. 00:12:49.040 --> 00:12:52.220 align:middle line:84% The living mother's eyes never fell on objects, 00:12:52.220 --> 00:12:56.400 align:middle line:90% but searched the open spaces. 00:12:56.400 --> 00:12:59.010 align:middle line:90% On dreams, there's no consensus. 00:12:59.010 --> 00:13:02.460 align:middle line:84% Half the day, I walked around sick from a dream 00:13:02.460 --> 00:13:06.390 align:middle line:84% as though I'd swallowed a toxic substance. 00:13:06.390 --> 00:13:08.940 align:middle line:84% For centuries, people thought of them as omens. 00:13:08.940 --> 00:13:12.540 align:middle line:84% Now we're told we are what we create. 00:13:12.540 --> 00:13:19.090 align:middle line:84% I am my loved one, her lace trimmed, water colored skirt. 00:13:19.090 --> 00:13:21.210 align:middle line:90% Forbearance. 00:13:21.210 --> 00:13:23.610 align:middle line:84% Not the ancients' notion of fate, 00:13:23.610 --> 00:13:25.590 align:middle line:84% though I can feel it in Oedipus' demeanor 00:13:25.590 --> 00:13:28.320 align:middle line:84% at the end as he walks blinded out 00:13:28.320 --> 00:13:32.910 align:middle line:84% of Thebes or in the grim composure of the 15th century 00:13:32.910 --> 00:13:38.430 align:middle line:84% Madonna, as if to say, since we can't will the knowledge we 00:13:38.430 --> 00:13:43.320 align:middle line:84% need to live we make, and when the thing is done, 00:13:43.320 --> 00:13:47.610 align:middle line:84% acknowledge its beauty and its brokenness. 00:13:47.610 --> 00:13:51.150 align:middle line:84% I dreamed I carved up my mother with a hunting knife. 00:13:51.150 --> 00:13:54.360 align:middle line:84% The mother with a mad son smiled past my face." 00:13:54.360 --> 00:14:00.230 align:middle line:90% 00:14:00.230 --> 00:14:03.810 align:middle line:84% I have a couple of poems now that I don't think 00:14:03.810 --> 00:14:06.950 align:middle line:90% need any real introduction. 00:14:06.950 --> 00:14:15.470 align:middle line:84% They are just about fairly everyday things. 00:14:15.470 --> 00:14:18.530 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read them together because a good friend of mine 00:14:18.530 --> 00:14:20.120 align:middle line:84% who helped me a lot with the poems 00:14:20.120 --> 00:14:22.460 align:middle line:84% in this book over the years insisted 00:14:22.460 --> 00:14:25.400 align:middle line:84% after I wrote the second one several years after the first 00:14:25.400 --> 00:14:27.890 align:middle line:84% that they were a pair, that they spoke to one another, 00:14:27.890 --> 00:14:30.500 align:middle line:84% that they had to be in the book, she said, side-by-side. 00:14:30.500 --> 00:14:35.270 align:middle line:84% And I don't argue with friends who are so sure. 00:14:35.270 --> 00:14:39.320 align:middle line:84% So I will read them side-by-side tonight. 00:14:39.320 --> 00:14:41.395 align:middle line:90% The first is titled "Our Names." 00:14:41.395 --> 00:14:44.660 align:middle line:90% 00:14:44.660 --> 00:14:48.230 align:middle line:84% "This morning, finches picking at saltbush seed 00:14:48.230 --> 00:14:50.870 align:middle line:84% startled at the motion of a trowel 00:14:50.870 --> 00:14:53.690 align:middle line:84% as I did at the high white scream 00:14:53.690 --> 00:14:57.650 align:middle line:84% of the deaf boy next door shaking from his dreams. 00:14:57.650 --> 00:14:59.300 align:middle line:90% Where was he moments before? 00:14:59.300 --> 00:15:03.500 align:middle line:84% I wondered, that waking should unsettle him so, 00:15:03.500 --> 00:15:06.200 align:middle line:84% so little land, so little yard for him 00:15:06.200 --> 00:15:09.530 align:middle line:84% and all the others to adventure in, in summer. 00:15:09.530 --> 00:15:13.730 align:middle line:84% Five families in shacks on a lot the size of ours. 00:15:13.730 --> 00:15:18.170 align:middle line:84% Just room enough we calculate for two grown men, a garden, 00:15:18.170 --> 00:15:24.250 align:middle line:84% and cat to discover together their individual selves. 00:15:24.250 --> 00:15:28.810 align:middle line:84% This evening, sipping drinks on the porch, the cicada buzz 00:15:28.810 --> 00:15:32.710 align:middle line:84% and heat and alcohol, so intermixed, we 00:15:32.710 --> 00:15:35.440 align:middle line:90% are an endless coil of sound. 00:15:35.440 --> 00:15:38.260 align:middle line:84% We almost fail to hear our names. 00:15:38.260 --> 00:15:42.070 align:middle line:84% The next door children walking along the railing of the fence, 00:15:42.070 --> 00:15:44.350 align:middle line:90% climb the chinaberry tree. 00:15:44.350 --> 00:15:46.600 align:middle line:90% And now they're on a roof. 00:15:46.600 --> 00:15:49.480 align:middle line:84% The deaf boy trailing a cape is standing 00:15:49.480 --> 00:15:52.480 align:middle line:84% on the very ridge whistling as he waves." 00:15:52.480 --> 00:15:57.610 align:middle line:90% 00:15:57.610 --> 00:15:59.500 align:middle line:84% The second poem then is titled "Downpour." 00:15:59.500 --> 00:16:03.700 align:middle line:90% 00:16:03.700 --> 00:16:08.260 align:middle line:84% "The garden lush with poppies, anemones, 00:16:08.260 --> 00:16:13.600 align:middle line:84% reds on blues on yellows is during this the first hard 00:16:13.600 --> 00:16:18.100 align:middle line:84% storm in months, a marketplace spatulate leaves 00:16:18.100 --> 00:16:23.550 align:middle line:84% and wind tossed buds, a bartering purposeful throng. 00:16:23.550 --> 00:16:27.000 align:middle line:84% And the man who tends it, who just stepped out, 00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:31.440 align:middle line:84% who stands on moony nights or even in this daylight downpour, 00:16:31.440 --> 00:16:35.820 align:middle line:84% slack as if listening for the need of growing things. 00:16:35.820 --> 00:16:39.060 align:middle line:84% This man, If you could see him as I do from the kitchen 00:16:39.060 --> 00:16:44.190 align:middle line:84% door in secret like a cat, is love in flesh and bone 00:16:44.190 --> 00:16:47.340 align:middle line:90% for all his giving. 00:16:47.340 --> 00:16:49.860 align:middle line:84% The almost glow imparted to the iris 00:16:49.860 --> 00:16:53.880 align:middle line:84% blade, he runs like living ribbon through his fingers, 00:16:53.880 --> 00:16:55.440 align:middle line:90% is emptiness. 00:16:55.440 --> 00:16:59.370 align:middle line:84% The one beside me here this afternoon and mornings as I 00:16:59.370 --> 00:17:04.079 align:middle line:84% roll my pant legs up to wade the low cool household lake 00:17:04.079 --> 00:17:06.240 align:middle line:90% between his dreams and mine." 00:17:06.240 --> 00:17:12.096 align:middle line:90% 00:17:12.096 --> 00:17:14.200 align:middle line:90% I can read a poem now that-- 00:17:14.200 --> 00:17:17.599 align:middle line:90% it began as a short story. 00:17:17.599 --> 00:17:20.500 align:middle line:90% Ill-fated. 00:17:20.500 --> 00:17:23.839 align:middle line:90% There wasn't a story in it. 00:17:23.839 --> 00:17:31.060 align:middle line:84% I-- several years ago experienced a very 00:17:31.060 --> 00:17:34.150 align:middle line:84% special evening with a friend and a partner of his. 00:17:34.150 --> 00:17:37.120 align:middle line:84% I was in New York visiting friends and someone 00:17:37.120 --> 00:17:41.260 align:middle line:84% that I'd known for years had a new partner who 00:17:41.260 --> 00:17:45.595 align:middle line:84% was suffering from illnesses related 00:17:45.595 --> 00:17:47.778 align:middle line:90% to HIV infection and AIDS. 00:17:47.778 --> 00:17:50.320 align:middle line:84% And they wanted me to come over to their very small apartment 00:17:50.320 --> 00:17:50.990 align:middle line:90% for dinner. 00:17:50.990 --> 00:17:55.840 align:middle line:84% And so I was delighted and went over for dinner. 00:17:55.840 --> 00:18:05.230 align:middle line:84% And there was some spirit of regard and respect and care 00:18:05.230 --> 00:18:09.340 align:middle line:84% that I sensed in their relation under very, very 00:18:09.340 --> 00:18:13.030 align:middle line:84% difficult circumstances that I had never experienced before. 00:18:13.030 --> 00:18:15.580 align:middle line:90% And it was very moving. 00:18:15.580 --> 00:18:18.440 align:middle line:84% And some months later, I tried to write a short story 00:18:18.440 --> 00:18:18.940 align:middle line:90% about it. 00:18:18.940 --> 00:18:19.930 align:middle line:90% I couldn't name it. 00:18:19.930 --> 00:18:22.900 align:middle line:90% I. Have not named it now. 00:18:22.900 --> 00:18:24.850 align:middle line:84% I got about four or five pages into the story 00:18:24.850 --> 00:18:27.202 align:middle line:84% and realized that it wasn't a story. 00:18:27.202 --> 00:18:28.660 align:middle line:84% And I started whittling and cutting 00:18:28.660 --> 00:18:31.420 align:middle line:90% back and working with it. 00:18:31.420 --> 00:18:34.770 align:middle line:84% And I ended up with these 16 lines. 00:18:34.770 --> 00:18:36.885 align:middle line:84% And the poem is titled "Nights Sweats 2." 00:18:36.885 --> 00:18:39.450 align:middle line:90% 00:18:39.450 --> 00:18:42.390 align:middle line:90% "Two men lie folded in sleep. 00:18:42.390 --> 00:18:45.920 align:middle line:84% A blue sheet draped over their bodies. 00:18:45.920 --> 00:18:49.220 align:middle line:84% One awakening to the other's sweat 00:18:49.220 --> 00:18:53.120 align:middle line:84% slips out to get the damp cloth they keep refrigerated 00:18:53.120 --> 00:18:55.500 align:middle line:90% for nights like this. 00:18:55.500 --> 00:18:58.560 align:middle line:84% If the other wakes, he'll weep and shake. 00:18:58.560 --> 00:19:02.190 align:middle line:84% So the one does the best he can to gentle him 00:19:02.190 --> 00:19:05.840 align:middle line:84% through the delirium and back into dream. 00:19:05.840 --> 00:19:09.560 align:middle line:84% Tonight, the other tries something different. 00:19:09.560 --> 00:19:14.090 align:middle line:84% He holds his breath releasing the air so gradually. 00:19:14.090 --> 00:19:18.200 align:middle line:84% He finds he can almost keep the shaking away. 00:19:18.200 --> 00:19:21.080 align:middle line:84% He lies so still in the arms of the one 00:19:21.080 --> 00:19:25.970 align:middle line:84% he loves that the one who loves him imagines for an instant 00:19:25.970 --> 00:19:30.080 align:middle line:84% as he drifts into sleep, that the other no longer breathes." 00:19:30.080 --> 00:19:33.380 align:middle line:90% 00:19:33.380 --> 00:19:35.630 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:19:35.630 --> 00:19:40.540 align:middle line:90% 00:19:40.540 --> 00:19:43.210 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:19:43.210 --> 00:19:45.220 align:middle line:90% That is not an elegy. 00:19:45.220 --> 00:19:46.990 align:middle line:90% This is an elegy. 00:19:46.990 --> 00:19:50.050 align:middle line:84% I wrote an elegy for my grandfather, who lived here 00:19:50.050 --> 00:19:55.530 align:middle line:90% in Tucson for many years. 00:19:55.530 --> 00:19:57.710 align:middle line:84% My brother and sister were both born here, 00:19:57.710 --> 00:20:04.173 align:middle line:84% and I was always pissed off that the morning my mother could 00:20:04.173 --> 00:20:06.590 align:middle line:84% tell that I was on the way, that they didn't jump in a car 00:20:06.590 --> 00:20:11.090 align:middle line:84% and drive down to Tucson so that I could be born here. 00:20:11.090 --> 00:20:13.280 align:middle line:84% I ended up born in Mesa and growing up in Tempe, 00:20:13.280 --> 00:20:14.810 align:middle line:90% which was fine, I suppose. 00:20:14.810 --> 00:20:18.500 align:middle line:90% But I have always loved Tucson. 00:20:18.500 --> 00:20:21.830 align:middle line:84% I got to know it through my grandparents, who 00:20:21.830 --> 00:20:27.020 align:middle line:84% lived over there at about Mountain and Helen. 00:20:27.020 --> 00:20:30.215 align:middle line:84% And when I returned then to live here, 00:20:30.215 --> 00:20:33.320 align:middle line:84% what may well be permanently, it was 00:20:33.320 --> 00:20:35.120 align:middle line:84% through especially my grandfather 00:20:35.120 --> 00:20:37.820 align:middle line:84% that I knew that I understood something 00:20:37.820 --> 00:20:41.640 align:middle line:90% about this part of the state. 00:20:41.640 --> 00:20:43.288 align:middle line:84% And so this is titled "Summer Elegy" 00:20:43.288 --> 00:20:45.080 align:middle line:84% and it's for my grandfather, George Rickel. 00:20:45.080 --> 00:20:50.530 align:middle line:90% 00:20:50.530 --> 00:20:56.050 align:middle line:84% "August morning, dog days and a last blue river overhead 00:20:56.050 --> 00:20:58.990 align:middle line:84% snaking westward where our weather comes from. 00:20:58.990 --> 00:21:04.030 align:middle line:84% Low gray clouds close in, overheat drugged to sun. 00:21:04.030 --> 00:21:08.680 align:middle line:84% Cypresses outside my door are bent dazed by the threat 00:21:08.680 --> 00:21:11.050 align:middle line:84% or merely skeptical live things grow 00:21:11.050 --> 00:21:12.940 align:middle line:90% non-committal in the desert. 00:21:12.940 --> 00:21:15.970 align:middle line:84% I see neighbors watering lawns on my way 00:21:15.970 --> 00:21:18.670 align:middle line:90% to buy the morning paper. 00:21:18.670 --> 00:21:21.700 align:middle line:84% Last July, one downpour washed out 00:21:21.700 --> 00:21:25.480 align:middle line:84% houses built too near a ravine, a bubbling river 00:21:25.480 --> 00:21:28.540 align:middle line:84% where moments before a dry arroyo lay, 00:21:28.540 --> 00:21:32.980 align:middle line:84% palo verde branches, shoes, and Coleman coolers bobbing 00:21:32.980 --> 00:21:35.140 align:middle line:90% in the front-page photographs. 00:21:35.140 --> 00:21:38.350 align:middle line:84% A broken line marked the path the woman's body 00:21:38.350 --> 00:21:43.310 align:middle line:84% took, torn from the porch that overlooked the wash. 00:21:43.310 --> 00:21:47.300 align:middle line:84% Today, after hours of thickening clouds, sheets of rain 00:21:47.300 --> 00:21:48.740 align:middle line:90% sweep over town. 00:21:48.740 --> 00:21:51.260 align:middle line:84% Sirens, I hear them from my living room, 00:21:51.260 --> 00:21:54.880 align:middle line:90% race aid in all directions. 00:21:54.880 --> 00:21:58.120 align:middle line:84% Often after summer storms, my father's father 00:21:58.120 --> 00:22:00.370 align:middle line:84% would walk along the residential streets 00:22:00.370 --> 00:22:05.170 align:middle line:84% to smell wet creosote and sidewalks being swept. 00:22:05.170 --> 00:22:08.620 align:middle line:84% Stooped, leathered by the sun, I thought of him 00:22:08.620 --> 00:22:11.470 align:middle line:84% as what's left standing when lightning strikes a tree. 00:22:11.470 --> 00:22:14.830 align:middle line:84% He'd fold my fingers into his papery hand 00:22:14.830 --> 00:22:17.680 align:middle line:84% and show me how things blurred for months 00:22:17.680 --> 00:22:20.740 align:middle line:84% by relentless heat become distinct, 00:22:20.740 --> 00:22:25.870 align:middle line:84% the suddenly rational palms and sky reflecting puddles. 00:22:25.870 --> 00:22:30.100 align:middle line:84% He taught me to love such clarity, and said it was a lie. 00:22:30.100 --> 00:22:31.990 align:middle line:84% The rains are good, but the land's 00:22:31.990 --> 00:22:34.510 align:middle line:90% no good at taking them in. 00:22:34.510 --> 00:22:38.200 align:middle line:84% Distrusting God, he hardly slept his last few months. 00:22:38.200 --> 00:22:43.750 align:middle line:84% What I can't see, he said, I spent the nights imagining. 00:22:43.750 --> 00:22:46.840 align:middle line:84% After the storm, I look out from my covered porch, 00:22:46.840 --> 00:22:48.970 align:middle line:90% the atmosphere so clarified. 00:22:48.970 --> 00:22:52.810 align:middle line:84% I see zigzagging lines, children's voices, 00:22:52.810 --> 00:22:56.140 align:middle line:84% and bird calls visible in the air. 00:22:56.140 --> 00:22:59.770 align:middle line:84% My father's father waits beside the ornamental orange tree, 00:22:59.770 --> 00:23:01.510 align:middle line:90% by the gate. 00:23:01.510 --> 00:23:05.230 align:middle line:84% Turned from kin and you'll go spinning till the end. 00:23:05.230 --> 00:23:07.030 align:middle line:90% So I stepped down. 00:23:07.030 --> 00:23:10.960 align:middle line:84% Two grown men, we walk the quiet streets hand in hand." 00:23:10.960 --> 00:23:16.240 align:middle line:90% 00:23:16.240 --> 00:23:17.380 align:middle line:90% Another Tucson poem. 00:23:17.380 --> 00:23:20.150 align:middle line:90% 00:23:20.150 --> 00:23:24.350 align:middle line:84% Those of you who have known me over the last 10 to 15 years 00:23:24.350 --> 00:23:27.410 align:middle line:84% won't believe this, but when I first 00:23:27.410 --> 00:23:29.780 align:middle line:84% moved to Tucson, my first few years 00:23:29.780 --> 00:23:33.035 align:middle line:90% here I used to stay up late. 00:23:33.035 --> 00:23:36.870 align:middle line:90% 00:23:36.870 --> 00:23:38.790 align:middle line:90% And I had a real good buddy. 00:23:38.790 --> 00:23:43.230 align:middle line:84% We would go nights to The Shanty, 00:23:43.230 --> 00:23:47.370 align:middle line:84% or to the Golden Nugget, or a place that's not here 00:23:47.370 --> 00:23:51.000 align:middle line:90% anymore, Mrs. O'Leary's Cow. 00:23:51.000 --> 00:23:57.030 align:middle line:84% And it would start to close in on last call. 00:23:57.030 --> 00:24:00.300 align:middle line:90% And we would still have energy. 00:24:00.300 --> 00:24:04.200 align:middle line:84% You know it's a long time ago if you know me now. 00:24:04.200 --> 00:24:10.030 align:middle line:84% And we wouldn't want to stop, just talking-- 00:24:10.030 --> 00:24:11.860 align:middle line:84% the drinking didn't matter by then. 00:24:11.860 --> 00:24:14.840 align:middle line:84% And there always seemed to be two choices. 00:24:14.840 --> 00:24:17.390 align:middle line:84% One was to either head that way, in which case, 00:24:17.390 --> 00:24:20.260 align:middle line:84% we would end up on the top of Mount Lemmon. 00:24:20.260 --> 00:24:24.490 align:middle line:84% And we wouldn't be back until practically daylight. 00:24:24.490 --> 00:24:26.410 align:middle line:84% More often we would head that way, 00:24:26.410 --> 00:24:29.020 align:middle line:84% and we'd end up toward Gates Pass. 00:24:29.020 --> 00:24:31.960 align:middle line:84% I'll bet some of you have done that at night. 00:24:31.960 --> 00:24:34.570 align:middle line:84% This is a poem that begins on one of those journeys. 00:24:34.570 --> 00:24:36.410 align:middle line:84% It ends up with another subject matter, 00:24:36.410 --> 00:24:39.820 align:middle line:90% about the power of memory. 00:24:39.820 --> 00:24:46.310 align:middle line:84% But this is an authentic night that we had some years ago. 00:24:46.310 --> 00:24:50.290 align:middle line:90% It's titled, "The Watchers." 00:24:50.290 --> 00:24:54.670 align:middle line:84% "Around midnight a full October moon, 00:24:54.670 --> 00:24:58.660 align:middle line:84% the sky not deep but flat and low and black, 00:24:58.660 --> 00:25:03.310 align:middle line:84% and six clouds fully lit, white, without disappointment, 00:25:03.310 --> 00:25:05.940 align:middle line:90% with visible depth. 00:25:05.940 --> 00:25:07.740 align:middle line:84% The kind of night, my friend Michael 00:25:07.740 --> 00:25:11.310 align:middle line:84% says, when the small planet's light warms your skin yet 00:25:11.310 --> 00:25:13.110 align:middle line:90% the dry fall air gets under it. 00:25:13.110 --> 00:25:15.350 align:middle line:90% He shivers. 00:25:15.350 --> 00:25:18.650 align:middle line:84% As we drive, blue, green, white neon signs 00:25:18.650 --> 00:25:23.040 align:middle line:84% burn cool, independent of us, the way our dreams sometimes 00:25:23.040 --> 00:25:23.540 align:middle line:90% are. 00:25:23.540 --> 00:25:26.840 align:middle line:84% The bleeding lamb's head floating in the air, 00:25:26.840 --> 00:25:31.230 align:middle line:84% or hubcap someone skimmed along the lake top. 00:25:31.230 --> 00:25:34.560 align:middle line:84% In this light, we drive the length of Tucson's longest 00:25:34.560 --> 00:25:37.590 align:middle line:84% boulevard out of town and blurt out 00:25:37.590 --> 00:25:40.350 align:middle line:90% random daily disappointments. 00:25:40.350 --> 00:25:42.660 align:middle line:84% Moon above the Rincons, what do you 00:25:42.660 --> 00:25:46.170 align:middle line:84% care for Mike's wife, who is probably sad tonight? 00:25:46.170 --> 00:25:49.320 align:middle line:84% Or the letter I put off writing to a favorite aunt whose 00:25:49.320 --> 00:25:51.540 align:middle line:90% husband died? 00:25:51.540 --> 00:25:55.050 align:middle line:84% High above Tucson, the ground, our skin, 00:25:55.050 --> 00:25:59.460 align:middle line:84% the leaves of desert shrubs plated silver by the moon. 00:25:59.460 --> 00:26:04.140 align:middle line:84% In the valley, city streetlights stitching in every direction. 00:26:04.140 --> 00:26:06.240 align:middle line:84% Nights like these are outside time, 00:26:06.240 --> 00:26:09.780 align:middle line:84% Mike says, like family photos you've known so well. 00:26:09.780 --> 00:26:12.810 align:middle line:84% You were there, until your mother told you 00:26:12.810 --> 00:26:17.250 align:middle line:84% in your 25th year, you weren't yet born. 00:26:17.250 --> 00:26:21.630 align:middle line:84% In one snapshot the split hand-set horizontal fence 00:26:21.630 --> 00:26:24.480 align:middle line:84% logs, the banked white snow stretching 00:26:24.480 --> 00:26:26.550 align:middle line:90% to the farmhouse and beyond. 00:26:26.550 --> 00:26:30.060 align:middle line:84% Smoke curling from the chimney, so familiar 00:26:30.060 --> 00:26:34.590 align:middle line:84% that in his favorite flannel shirt, Mike carries its smell. 00:26:34.590 --> 00:26:37.290 align:middle line:84% All this from a time when he was just a vague idea, 00:26:37.290 --> 00:26:41.190 align:middle line:84% a pill of thought, the outcome of one night's 00:26:41.190 --> 00:26:45.600 align:middle line:84% unexpected swell in his father's Air Force uniform. 00:26:45.600 --> 00:26:49.200 align:middle line:84% Mike smiles to recall his mother's enthusiastic voice 00:26:49.200 --> 00:26:51.510 align:middle line:90% and side-turned blushing face. 00:26:51.510 --> 00:26:54.120 align:middle line:84% He still sees his father's bomber jacket, 00:26:54.120 --> 00:26:57.390 align:middle line:84% the pleated khaki pants, and calf-length coat 00:26:57.390 --> 00:26:58.740 align:middle line:90% with golden buttons. 00:26:58.740 --> 00:27:01.920 align:middle line:84% I see them, because Mike was there, and is. 00:27:01.920 --> 00:27:03.780 align:middle line:90% None of this is speculation. 00:27:03.780 --> 00:27:05.970 align:middle line:84% The moon will slip behind the mountains. 00:27:05.970 --> 00:27:08.410 align:middle line:84% The sun will rise and warm the air, 00:27:08.410 --> 00:27:12.360 align:middle line:84% and Michael and I will not be and always will 00:27:12.360 --> 00:27:13.755 align:middle line:90% be there and here." 00:27:13.755 --> 00:27:16.510 align:middle line:90% 00:27:16.510 --> 00:27:18.980 align:middle line:90% [AUDIENCE] 00:27:18.980 --> 00:27:25.410 align:middle line:90% 00:27:25.410 --> 00:27:30.300 align:middle line:90% Let me drift to another poet. 00:27:30.300 --> 00:27:33.180 align:middle line:84% I'd like to read a poem by George Herbert. 00:27:33.180 --> 00:27:34.680 align:middle line:90% He's a poet whose work I love. 00:27:34.680 --> 00:27:37.380 align:middle line:90% I'm not a scholar of his work. 00:27:37.380 --> 00:27:39.810 align:middle line:84% I have a personal understanding of it. 00:27:39.810 --> 00:27:46.570 align:middle line:84% He's a 17th-century poet, a devotional poet, a country 00:27:46.570 --> 00:27:47.710 align:middle line:90% parson. 00:27:47.710 --> 00:27:50.800 align:middle line:84% What I love about his poems, many of them, 00:27:50.800 --> 00:27:56.710 align:middle line:84% is that they begin with very plain images and metaphors. 00:27:56.710 --> 00:28:01.150 align:middle line:84% And sometimes by the time he's through working them, 00:28:01.150 --> 00:28:06.047 align:middle line:84% they have almost radically expansive perspectives. 00:28:06.047 --> 00:28:08.630 align:middle line:84% Actually, I'm not going to read you a poem like that of George 00:28:08.630 --> 00:28:11.020 align:middle line:90% Herbert's. 00:28:11.020 --> 00:28:13.640 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read you another poem, that has always 00:28:13.640 --> 00:28:16.010 align:middle line:84% been my favorite by George Herbert, 00:28:16.010 --> 00:28:18.710 align:middle line:84% partly because of its difference. 00:28:18.710 --> 00:28:21.320 align:middle line:84% It may be radically expansive, but it's not 00:28:21.320 --> 00:28:25.400 align:middle line:84% through development of a single metaphor or image. 00:28:25.400 --> 00:28:27.540 align:middle line:84% It's in fact a poem that is a list. 00:28:27.540 --> 00:28:29.990 align:middle line:90% It's a kind of catalogue. 00:28:29.990 --> 00:28:33.350 align:middle line:84% And it is, to me, endlessly beautiful and inscrutable 00:28:33.350 --> 00:28:34.832 align:middle line:90% and mysterious. 00:28:34.832 --> 00:28:37.040 align:middle line:84% And I'm going to read a poem afterwards that I wrote, 00:28:37.040 --> 00:28:42.160 align:middle line:84% that was sort of an imitation or out of this poem. 00:28:42.160 --> 00:28:44.890 align:middle line:90% The poem is titled "Prayer." 00:28:44.890 --> 00:28:46.810 align:middle line:90% And it's a sonnet. 00:28:46.810 --> 00:28:48.010 align:middle line:90% It's short. 00:28:48.010 --> 00:28:53.310 align:middle line:84% And the first word of the poem is also prayer. 00:28:53.310 --> 00:28:55.290 align:middle line:90% "Prayer, the church's banquet. 00:28:55.290 --> 00:29:00.940 align:middle line:84% Angel's age, God's breath in man returning to his birth. 00:29:00.940 --> 00:29:06.520 align:middle line:84% The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage. 00:29:06.520 --> 00:29:09.430 align:middle line:84% The Christian plummet sounding heaven and Earth, 00:29:09.430 --> 00:29:12.310 align:middle line:84% engine against the Almighty, sinner's tower, 00:29:12.310 --> 00:29:16.390 align:middle line:84% reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear. 00:29:16.390 --> 00:29:22.300 align:middle line:84% The six-days world transposing in an hour, a kind of tomb 00:29:22.300 --> 00:29:26.260 align:middle line:90% which all things hear and fear. 00:29:26.260 --> 00:29:30.400 align:middle line:84% Softness and peace and joy and love and bliss. 00:29:30.400 --> 00:29:34.090 align:middle line:84% Exalted manna, gladness of the best. 00:29:34.090 --> 00:29:37.420 align:middle line:84% Heaven in ordinary, man well-dressed. 00:29:37.420 --> 00:29:39.940 align:middle line:84% The Milky Way, the bird of paradise. 00:29:39.940 --> 00:29:42.670 align:middle line:84% Church bells beyond the stars heard. 00:29:42.670 --> 00:29:47.690 align:middle line:84% The soul's blood, the land of spices, something understood." 00:29:47.690 --> 00:29:53.350 align:middle line:90% 00:29:53.350 --> 00:29:58.060 align:middle line:84% I cannot share George Herbert's religious convictions. 00:29:58.060 --> 00:30:02.140 align:middle line:84% I cannot speak to God in my poems as he did in virtually 00:30:02.140 --> 00:30:04.820 align:middle line:90% all of his. 00:30:04.820 --> 00:30:07.676 align:middle line:90% But I can try to talk big-- 00:30:07.676 --> 00:30:10.400 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:30:10.400 --> 00:30:20.530 align:middle line:84% --through a kind of catalogue and list and sense 00:30:20.530 --> 00:30:25.420 align:middle line:84% that I may have something, or may arrive at something 00:30:25.420 --> 00:30:28.870 align:middle line:90% through that kind of process. 00:30:28.870 --> 00:30:30.460 align:middle line:84% So my poem isn't titled "Prayer." 00:30:30.460 --> 00:30:35.260 align:middle line:84% It's titled "Night Singing," and it 00:30:35.260 --> 00:30:38.770 align:middle line:84% goes after love and death and the whole shot. 00:30:38.770 --> 00:30:39.970 align:middle line:90% But it's not narrative. 00:30:39.970 --> 00:30:42.580 align:middle line:90% It's a kind of catalogue. 00:30:42.580 --> 00:30:45.610 align:middle line:90% "Night Singing." 00:30:45.610 --> 00:30:48.820 align:middle line:84% "Not the thought an eye blink can decide. 00:30:48.820 --> 00:30:52.540 align:middle line:84% Not the depthlessness as you sit in the yard at night 00:30:52.540 --> 00:30:55.690 align:middle line:84% staring at the blackness around the stars. 00:30:55.690 --> 00:30:59.830 align:middle line:84% A body hurled into space might never stop. 00:30:59.830 --> 00:31:03.880 align:middle line:84% If something small, small at the center like a flower. 00:31:03.880 --> 00:31:09.010 align:middle line:84% If something felt could take the shape of lupine or foxglove 00:31:09.010 --> 00:31:13.910 align:middle line:90% and be flower and not a flower. 00:31:13.910 --> 00:31:16.880 align:middle line:84% Late one night a bird song stopped me. 00:31:16.880 --> 00:31:18.260 align:middle line:90% I was just out walking. 00:31:18.260 --> 00:31:19.370 align:middle line:90% I felt lucky. 00:31:19.370 --> 00:31:22.280 align:middle line:84% It sounded like a secret, a song a child 00:31:22.280 --> 00:31:25.280 align:middle line:84% might hum measuring his uniqueness, 00:31:25.280 --> 00:31:30.180 align:middle line:84% until I remembered the mockingbird's uncommon habit. 00:31:30.180 --> 00:31:33.030 align:middle line:84% Clueless along an edge, as though a knife blade 00:31:33.030 --> 00:31:36.370 align:middle line:90% might rest an hour on a wrist. 00:31:36.370 --> 00:31:40.030 align:middle line:84% Love's a gap into which hate also precisely fits. 00:31:40.030 --> 00:31:42.700 align:middle line:90% Love shakes a leg and sits. 00:31:42.700 --> 00:31:46.060 align:middle line:84% Love knows the sun will burn five-billion years, 00:31:46.060 --> 00:31:47.800 align:middle line:90% then blow the galaxy to bits." 00:31:47.800 --> 00:31:55.160 align:middle line:90% 00:31:55.160 --> 00:32:04.540 align:middle line:84% The poem that the title of the book, Arreboles, appears in 00:32:04.540 --> 00:32:06.490 align:middle line:90% is titled "Winterreise." 00:32:06.490 --> 00:32:08.690 align:middle line:90% Forgive me, if you speak German. 00:32:08.690 --> 00:32:11.050 align:middle line:90% I do not. 00:32:11.050 --> 00:32:15.910 align:middle line:84% I do, however, listen to the songs of Franz Schubert, 00:32:15.910 --> 00:32:19.960 align:middle line:84% and "Winterreise" is the title of a song cycle 00:32:19.960 --> 00:32:24.350 align:middle line:84% that he wrote in the last months of his life. 00:32:24.350 --> 00:32:29.830 align:middle line:84% He came across a set of poems by a contemporary-- 00:32:29.830 --> 00:32:35.050 align:middle line:84% a young German romantic poet, Wilhelm Mueller. 00:32:35.050 --> 00:32:37.330 align:middle line:84% And Schubert fell in love with the poems 00:32:37.330 --> 00:32:40.120 align:middle line:84% and decided he would set them to songs. 00:32:40.120 --> 00:32:41.980 align:middle line:84% It's usually translated, Winterreise, 00:32:41.980 --> 00:32:44.000 align:middle line:90% as a winter's journey. 00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:49.810 align:middle line:84% And in the poems a young man is walking on a winter day. 00:32:49.810 --> 00:32:57.140 align:middle line:84% And as a romantic German poet writing 00:32:57.140 --> 00:32:59.930 align:middle line:84% about a young man walking on a winter's day 00:32:59.930 --> 00:33:04.310 align:middle line:84% could well imagine, he thinks about mortality. 00:33:04.310 --> 00:33:07.940 align:middle line:84% But by the end something else occurs to him. 00:33:07.940 --> 00:33:10.670 align:middle line:84% He begins to see possibilities for the spring 00:33:10.670 --> 00:33:13.170 align:middle line:90% and for renewal and for life. 00:33:13.170 --> 00:33:19.430 align:middle line:84% And so the songs embody that tension 00:33:19.430 --> 00:33:23.720 align:middle line:84% of a recognition of mortality and the great beauty 00:33:23.720 --> 00:33:25.790 align:middle line:90% and magic and richness of life. 00:33:25.790 --> 00:33:30.440 align:middle line:84% So the poem begins with that spirit and talks a bit 00:33:30.440 --> 00:33:35.360 align:middle line:84% about Schubert and then goes places. 00:33:35.360 --> 00:33:36.581 align:middle line:90% "Winterreise." 00:33:36.581 --> 00:33:39.290 align:middle line:90% 00:33:39.290 --> 00:33:42.350 align:middle line:84% "Schubert walked a path, a song he 00:33:42.350 --> 00:33:47.450 align:middle line:84% sang, not morbidly or in fear, but in contrast 00:33:47.450 --> 00:33:50.960 align:middle line:84% to what might come, to what would not, 00:33:50.960 --> 00:33:53.630 align:middle line:90% in his voice a gladness. 00:33:53.630 --> 00:33:57.170 align:middle line:84% I hear this song in the spastic blind wriggling 00:33:57.170 --> 00:34:00.650 align:middle line:84% of worms that eat the agave root, the agave's 00:34:00.650 --> 00:34:06.230 align:middle line:84% outer blades shrinking inward, yellow, unable to stand. 00:34:06.230 --> 00:34:11.030 align:middle line:84% And in the gap between the dog's God-powerful nose and the cat's 00:34:11.030 --> 00:34:15.290 align:middle line:84% flattened ears, each animal poised at the absolute limit, 00:34:15.290 --> 00:34:19.250 align:middle line:84% one angstrom unit beyond which they'd wrap themselves 00:34:19.250 --> 00:34:22.640 align:middle line:84% fang and claw into a nuclear cloud of hair. 00:34:22.640 --> 00:34:25.219 align:middle line:90% 00:34:25.219 --> 00:34:29.659 align:middle line:84% There's a color that is many colors, in Spanish a word that 00:34:29.659 --> 00:34:30.620 align:middle line:90% sings-- 00:34:30.620 --> 00:34:32.449 align:middle line:90% arreboles. 00:34:32.449 --> 00:34:35.480 align:middle line:84% This color you see in clouds on the horizon 00:34:35.480 --> 00:34:37.520 align:middle line:90% opposite the setting sun. 00:34:37.520 --> 00:34:40.760 align:middle line:84% Not the fires that bring tears, but the color that 00:34:40.760 --> 00:34:44.179 align:middle line:84% moves opposite these brilliances, akin to mauve 00:34:44.179 --> 00:34:46.250 align:middle line:90% and rose and violet. 00:34:46.250 --> 00:34:50.659 align:middle line:84% Like musical overtones, strike the piano's middle C 00:34:50.659 --> 00:34:53.300 align:middle line:84% and hunch down close to the spray of strings 00:34:53.300 --> 00:34:55.610 align:middle line:90% down by the sounding board. 00:34:55.610 --> 00:35:00.230 align:middle line:84% Listen, the others, not God, but something nameless, 00:35:00.230 --> 00:35:05.450 align:middle line:84% like ghosts or angels, more felt than seen or heard. 00:35:05.450 --> 00:35:10.850 align:middle line:84% The hope that hovers pure above the written, the drawn, 00:35:10.850 --> 00:35:12.200 align:middle line:90% the legislated plan." 00:35:12.200 --> 00:35:18.680 align:middle line:90% 00:35:18.680 --> 00:35:25.360 align:middle line:84% I'm going to make a turn now, probably 00:35:25.360 --> 00:35:28.390 align:middle line:84% for the rest of the reading, to a prose piece. 00:35:28.390 --> 00:35:32.530 align:middle line:84% I said at the beginning that I've 00:35:32.530 --> 00:35:36.280 align:middle line:84% been working for about a year and a half on prose pieces, 00:35:36.280 --> 00:35:42.000 align:middle line:84% primarily, recovering childhood stories. 00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:44.250 align:middle line:84% I'm not writing an autobiography. 00:35:44.250 --> 00:35:47.490 align:middle line:84% It's a matter of trying to find those moments 00:35:47.490 --> 00:35:53.720 align:middle line:84% and those characters that give some sort of dimension 00:35:53.720 --> 00:35:55.430 align:middle line:90% to a life. 00:35:55.430 --> 00:35:57.200 align:middle line:84% And I have this belief, in having 00:35:57.200 --> 00:36:00.320 align:middle line:84% read these kinds of pieces by others 00:36:00.320 --> 00:36:02.270 align:middle line:84% and having read a fair amount of literature 00:36:02.270 --> 00:36:05.690 align:middle line:84% that we, in fact, do have overlapping 00:36:05.690 --> 00:36:12.110 align:middle line:84% concerns in our lives and in our stages of maturing and growing 00:36:12.110 --> 00:36:13.280 align:middle line:90% older. 00:36:13.280 --> 00:36:17.210 align:middle line:84% And so I've got about 16 or 17 of these pieces. 00:36:17.210 --> 00:36:21.110 align:middle line:84% And they've begun to gather themselves into subject areas. 00:36:21.110 --> 00:36:23.720 align:middle line:84% And those have become, for the time being, 00:36:23.720 --> 00:36:28.080 align:middle line:90% four parts of a manuscript. 00:36:28.080 --> 00:36:33.240 align:middle line:84% And the subject areas are on family, on sex and sexuality, 00:36:33.240 --> 00:36:36.360 align:middle line:90% on death, and on ego and art. 00:36:36.360 --> 00:36:41.820 align:middle line:84% And I'm going to read a brief piece from the on death 00:36:41.820 --> 00:36:47.560 align:middle line:84% section, which seemed to be the most finished of the 16. 00:36:47.560 --> 00:36:52.950 align:middle line:84% I'd like to explain that in working on these prose pieces, 00:36:52.950 --> 00:36:59.190 align:middle line:84% I'm working with the aesthetic that I use when I write poems 00:36:59.190 --> 00:37:04.360 align:middle line:84% and not the aesthetic that is often taught 00:37:04.360 --> 00:37:06.970 align:middle line:84% and that I often use in writing essays. 00:37:06.970 --> 00:37:10.300 align:middle line:84% I tend to think that in the writing 00:37:10.300 --> 00:37:12.550 align:middle line:84% of the traditional essay, we teach and we 00:37:12.550 --> 00:37:15.640 align:middle line:84% write an essay in the image of a snake that 00:37:15.640 --> 00:37:18.600 align:middle line:90% swallows its own tail. 00:37:18.600 --> 00:37:23.100 align:middle line:84% You know how we begin by introducing a notion somewhere 00:37:23.100 --> 00:37:27.030 align:middle line:84% early in the piece, and then we develop and complicate 00:37:27.030 --> 00:37:30.300 align:middle line:84% and support that notion through the body of the piece. 00:37:30.300 --> 00:37:34.470 align:middle line:84% And then by the end with this expanded understanding, 00:37:34.470 --> 00:37:37.920 align:middle line:84% this deepened perspective on that opening notion, 00:37:37.920 --> 00:37:41.010 align:middle line:84% we make a kind of return to that notion. 00:37:41.010 --> 00:37:44.280 align:middle line:84% And I think of that as the snake swallowing its own tail 00:37:44.280 --> 00:37:46.500 align:middle line:90% image of writing nonfiction. 00:37:46.500 --> 00:37:48.690 align:middle line:84% And it's wonderfully serviceable, 00:37:48.690 --> 00:37:52.620 align:middle line:84% but it doesn't serve me in these particular kinds of pieces. 00:37:52.620 --> 00:37:59.490 align:middle line:84% The image that I have for a poem I get from a long time ago-- 00:37:59.490 --> 00:38:02.910 align:middle line:84% 7th century-- a very famous analogy. 00:38:02.910 --> 00:38:05.490 align:middle line:90% 00:38:05.490 --> 00:38:15.140 align:middle line:84% In trying to explain to the king the human lifespan, 00:38:15.140 --> 00:38:22.690 align:middle line:84% a counselor said, King, imagine that there's a great feasting 00:38:22.690 --> 00:38:23.190 align:middle line:90% hall. 00:38:23.190 --> 00:38:25.920 align:middle line:84% And it's full of light, and it's full of warmth 00:38:25.920 --> 00:38:27.720 align:middle line:90% and the activities of feasting. 00:38:27.720 --> 00:38:31.830 align:middle line:84% And then imagine that outside this hall is all darkness 00:38:31.830 --> 00:38:35.680 align:middle line:90% and cold and storm. 00:38:35.680 --> 00:38:37.930 align:middle line:84% And the counselor said, then the small sparrow 00:38:37.930 --> 00:38:39.940 align:middle line:84% that flies out of the dark through one 00:38:39.940 --> 00:38:44.620 align:middle line:84% door briefly into the light and warmth and out another door 00:38:44.620 --> 00:38:47.080 align:middle line:90% is like our lifespan-- 00:38:47.080 --> 00:38:49.812 align:middle line:84% that we're the light in the middle of two darknesses. 00:38:49.812 --> 00:38:52.270 align:middle line:84% Well, I think of a lot of poems as really working that way, 00:38:52.270 --> 00:38:53.645 align:middle line:84% that they enter through one door, 00:38:53.645 --> 00:38:55.150 align:middle line:84% and they very rarely circle around 00:38:55.150 --> 00:38:57.370 align:middle line:90% and go back out that other door. 00:38:57.370 --> 00:39:00.580 align:middle line:84% And yet they feel right when they go out whatever door they 00:39:00.580 --> 00:39:02.410 align:middle line:90% go out, if they succeed. 00:39:02.410 --> 00:39:04.450 align:middle line:84% And I'm trying to write prose pieces that 00:39:04.450 --> 00:39:07.060 align:middle line:84% work in that way, that follow their paths 00:39:07.060 --> 00:39:11.200 align:middle line:84% to inevitable conclusions but don't draw conclusions 00:39:11.200 --> 00:39:16.070 align:middle line:84% in the ways that often in nonfiction we expect. 00:39:16.070 --> 00:39:29.310 align:middle line:84% So let me read this piece to conclude the reading. 00:39:29.310 --> 00:39:30.000 align:middle line:90% A few details. 00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:34.230 align:middle line:84% This is about halfway through the manuscript at this point. 00:39:34.230 --> 00:39:38.790 align:middle line:84% And it might be helpful to know that I was born in 1951. 00:39:38.790 --> 00:39:44.010 align:middle line:84% And so at the time of this piece, of the experiences here, 00:39:44.010 --> 00:39:47.250 align:middle line:84% I'm six, seven, and finally, eight. 00:39:47.250 --> 00:39:51.472 align:middle line:84% And I did grow up in Tempe when it was small. 00:39:51.472 --> 00:39:52.930 align:middle line:84% When I was born there were probably 00:39:52.930 --> 00:39:55.330 align:middle line:84% no more than 8,000 people living there. 00:39:55.330 --> 00:39:57.970 align:middle line:84% And it was a college town and a farming town. 00:39:57.970 --> 00:40:02.620 align:middle line:84% It was defined by those two activities. 00:40:02.620 --> 00:40:10.510 align:middle line:84% If you've been to Tempe recently, you won't believe it. 00:40:10.510 --> 00:40:13.570 align:middle line:84% But that's the way it was in my first years there. 00:40:13.570 --> 00:40:15.670 align:middle line:84% I was connected to the college community, 00:40:15.670 --> 00:40:18.490 align:middle line:84% because my father taught on the faculty there. 00:40:18.490 --> 00:40:20.430 align:middle line:84% He's a pianist and a harpsichordist. 00:40:20.430 --> 00:40:24.474 align:middle line:90% 00:40:24.474 --> 00:40:25.230 align:middle line:90% Anything else? 00:40:25.230 --> 00:40:27.010 align:middle line:90% I don't think so. 00:40:27.010 --> 00:40:27.510 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:40:27.510 --> 00:40:29.760 align:middle line:90% This is from on death section. 00:40:29.760 --> 00:40:35.770 align:middle line:84% And the title of the piece is "Soldiers." 00:40:35.770 --> 00:40:39.490 align:middle line:90% 00:40:39.490 --> 00:40:44.440 align:middle line:84% Oh, it's not really important, but I 00:40:44.440 --> 00:40:48.230 align:middle line:84% went to a school affiliated with the college. 00:40:48.230 --> 00:40:50.230 align:middle line:84% And someday I'm going to do something with this. 00:40:50.230 --> 00:40:51.853 align:middle line:84% Maybe you can give me suggestions. 00:40:51.853 --> 00:40:53.770 align:middle line:84% It was an experimental school-- a lab school-- 00:40:53.770 --> 00:40:55.795 align:middle line:84% and it was called Payne Training. 00:40:55.795 --> 00:40:56.840 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:40:56.840 --> 00:40:57.340 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:40:57.340 --> 00:41:01.270 align:middle line:90% 00:41:01.270 --> 00:41:02.380 align:middle line:90% Well, it was after Ira. 00:41:02.380 --> 00:41:04.335 align:middle line:90% D. Payne, you know. 00:41:04.335 --> 00:41:06.083 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:41:06.083 --> 00:41:08.500 align:middle line:84% But when you don't see it on the page you don't know that, 00:41:08.500 --> 00:41:09.000 align:middle line:90% do you? 00:41:09.000 --> 00:41:11.470 align:middle line:90% 00:41:11.470 --> 00:41:11.980 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:41:11.980 --> 00:41:15.070 align:middle line:84% The title of this piece is "Soldiers." 00:41:15.070 --> 00:41:19.820 align:middle line:84% "In the late '50s, we hid from Nazis. 00:41:19.820 --> 00:41:23.900 align:middle line:84% The safest place was Grady Gammage Jr.'s house, 00:41:23.900 --> 00:41:26.600 align:middle line:84% at the heart of the college campus, 00:41:26.600 --> 00:41:29.450 align:middle line:84% with broad concrete steps up to a front 00:41:29.450 --> 00:41:33.860 align:middle line:84% porch and enclosed with tall, narrow, multi-paned windows. 00:41:33.860 --> 00:41:38.150 align:middle line:84% This dignified two-story house was unlike any other I knew-- 00:41:38.150 --> 00:41:40.880 align:middle line:84% probably a Queen Anne or Anglo Territorial 00:41:40.880 --> 00:41:42.980 align:middle line:90% from the turn of the century. 00:41:42.980 --> 00:41:46.370 align:middle line:84% All my other friends lived in one-story ranch-style houses 00:41:46.370 --> 00:41:48.300 align:middle line:90% like ours. 00:41:48.300 --> 00:41:51.000 align:middle line:84% Grady was the college president's son, 00:41:51.000 --> 00:41:54.630 align:middle line:84% the shortest boy in class, with fine black hair 00:41:54.630 --> 00:41:58.080 align:middle line:84% parted on the side and greased to a lacquered shine-- 00:41:58.080 --> 00:42:02.540 align:middle line:84% perfectly combed, as if painted on his head. 00:42:02.540 --> 00:42:04.850 align:middle line:84% I remember his face as always serious-- 00:42:04.850 --> 00:42:09.110 align:middle line:84% the deep-set dark eyes and long thin nose producing 00:42:09.110 --> 00:42:14.400 align:middle line:84% angularities most people's faces take on later, in adulthood. 00:42:14.400 --> 00:42:18.540 align:middle line:84% His house was the traditional president's family residence. 00:42:18.540 --> 00:42:21.930 align:middle line:84% When I'd visit on Saturdays an aging housekeeper, whose 00:42:21.930 --> 00:42:24.060 align:middle line:84% accent made me think her German born 00:42:24.060 --> 00:42:26.730 align:middle line:84% and whom Grady called Gram, would fix us 00:42:26.730 --> 00:42:29.580 align:middle line:84% ham sandwiches with the crust sliced off. 00:42:29.580 --> 00:42:32.700 align:middle line:84% She'd place these, with small cups of canned fruit 00:42:32.700 --> 00:42:35.460 align:middle line:84% and glasses of milk, on the tiny table and chair 00:42:35.460 --> 00:42:37.650 align:middle line:90% set in Grady's playroom. 00:42:37.650 --> 00:42:40.710 align:middle line:84% He had one whole room set aside for toys 00:42:40.710 --> 00:42:43.770 align:middle line:84% and a substantial carpenter-made treehouse right 00:42:43.770 --> 00:42:47.700 align:middle line:84% on the property-- so unlike the rickety scrap-wood structures 00:42:47.700 --> 00:42:50.160 align:middle line:84% made by my older brother and his friends 00:42:50.160 --> 00:42:55.040 align:middle line:84% in the cottonwoods that stood along canals in town. 00:42:55.040 --> 00:42:58.250 align:middle line:84% After lunch, Gram safely out of the way in the kitchen 00:42:58.250 --> 00:43:03.140 align:middle line:84% washing dishes, we'd tiptoe to the house's central staircase. 00:43:03.140 --> 00:43:05.060 align:middle line:84% In the wall along the upper level 00:43:05.060 --> 00:43:08.360 align:middle line:84% was what Grady called his secret door, behind which 00:43:08.360 --> 00:43:10.010 align:middle line:90% rose a set of steps-- 00:43:10.010 --> 00:43:12.530 align:middle line:84% a passageway into complete darkness 00:43:12.530 --> 00:43:16.790 align:middle line:84% where we'd hide from the Nazi stormtroopers. 00:43:16.790 --> 00:43:18.720 align:middle line:84% Each time Grady led me to the door, 00:43:18.720 --> 00:43:20.870 align:middle line:84% I was thrilled by the secrecy and danger, 00:43:20.870 --> 00:43:24.470 align:middle line:84% by the enormity of what was at stake-- life or death, which 00:43:24.470 --> 00:43:27.480 align:middle line:90% we comprehended only vaguely. 00:43:27.480 --> 00:43:29.670 align:middle line:84% The passageway itself was so dark, 00:43:29.670 --> 00:43:32.670 align:middle line:84% no matter how long we waited for our pupils to adjust, 00:43:32.670 --> 00:43:34.890 align:middle line:84% we saw nothing but absolute black-- 00:43:34.890 --> 00:43:38.730 align:middle line:84% a blackness that pressed up against our eyes. 00:43:38.730 --> 00:43:40.860 align:middle line:84% We'd touch the wall to steady ourselves 00:43:40.860 --> 00:43:42.720 align:middle line:90% as we walked a few steps up. 00:43:42.720 --> 00:43:45.810 align:middle line:84% Then, we'd sit and whisper about whom we'd lock out 00:43:45.810 --> 00:43:49.860 align:middle line:84% and whom we'd invite to join us and thereby save. 00:43:49.860 --> 00:43:52.200 align:middle line:84% After several minutes of this, we'd creep back down 00:43:52.200 --> 00:43:53.890 align:middle line:84% and listen at the back of the door, 00:43:53.890 --> 00:43:57.480 align:middle line:84% making sure no one was on the stairs before slipping out. 00:43:57.480 --> 00:44:00.850 align:middle line:90% 00:44:00.850 --> 00:44:03.520 align:middle line:84% Another game we played just once. 00:44:03.520 --> 00:44:05.560 align:middle line:90% We were now eight. 00:44:05.560 --> 00:44:07.930 align:middle line:84% I don't remember if it was a weekend or holiday, 00:44:07.930 --> 00:44:11.020 align:middle line:84% but I was home in the morning when a call came. 00:44:11.020 --> 00:44:13.180 align:middle line:84% Could someone bring Boyer to play with Grady, 00:44:13.180 --> 00:44:14.530 align:middle line:90% the caller asked. 00:44:14.530 --> 00:44:16.300 align:middle line:84% His father had died of a heart attack, 00:44:16.300 --> 00:44:21.310 align:middle line:84% and Grady would be spending the day at a house near ours. 00:44:21.310 --> 00:44:23.650 align:middle line:84% I contemplated the enormity of this news-- 00:44:23.650 --> 00:44:25.810 align:middle line:84% the first human death of my life-- 00:44:25.810 --> 00:44:28.340 align:middle line:84% as I rode in the back of our car. 00:44:28.340 --> 00:44:31.750 align:middle line:84% I ran my hand over the seamed blue surface of the car seat 00:44:31.750 --> 00:44:34.750 align:middle line:84% and tried to imagine life without my father or mother-- 00:44:34.750 --> 00:44:37.660 align:middle line:90% a desperately painful fantasy. 00:44:37.660 --> 00:44:39.490 align:middle line:90% Grady met me at the front door. 00:44:39.490 --> 00:44:41.440 align:middle line:84% His eyes were not red from crying. 00:44:41.440 --> 00:44:43.370 align:middle line:90% His voice was steady. 00:44:43.370 --> 00:44:46.690 align:middle line:84% But I could tell he held himself in absolute reserve. 00:44:46.690 --> 00:44:50.350 align:middle line:84% Some invisible force maintained the expressions of his face, 00:44:50.350 --> 00:44:54.880 align:middle line:84% the modulations of his voice in a middle controlled register, 00:44:54.880 --> 00:44:58.960 align:middle line:84% the way some people act on tranquilizers. 00:44:58.960 --> 00:45:02.380 align:middle line:84% The day, as I remember it, was without adults. 00:45:02.380 --> 00:45:05.230 align:middle line:84% I don't recall who took the phone call, who drove, 00:45:05.230 --> 00:45:08.110 align:middle line:84% or why I sat alone in the backseat of the car. 00:45:08.110 --> 00:45:11.320 align:middle line:84% I don't recall who other than Grady was at the house-- 00:45:11.320 --> 00:45:13.630 align:middle line:90% a low, red-brick bungalow-- 00:45:13.630 --> 00:45:17.270 align:middle line:84% or how Grady and I found our way to the backyard. 00:45:17.270 --> 00:45:19.940 align:middle line:84% There, both of us in a kind of trance, 00:45:19.940 --> 00:45:22.190 align:middle line:84% we played with small toy soldiers 00:45:22.190 --> 00:45:25.310 align:middle line:84% and did not talk about his father's death. 00:45:25.310 --> 00:45:27.920 align:middle line:84% We dislodged with trowels and then lined up 00:45:27.920 --> 00:45:30.290 align:middle line:84% in two parallel columns diagonally 00:45:30.290 --> 00:45:34.340 align:middle line:84% at the center of the lawn bricks that had circled, ornamentally, 00:45:34.340 --> 00:45:36.320 align:middle line:90% several tree wells. 00:45:36.320 --> 00:45:40.880 align:middle line:84% Then, we marched battalions of army men along the brick roads. 00:45:40.880 --> 00:45:43.040 align:middle line:84% When we got to the road's end the first time, 00:45:43.040 --> 00:45:44.270 align:middle line:90% I was at a loss. 00:45:44.270 --> 00:45:46.160 align:middle line:84% There was no purpose to this game. 00:45:46.160 --> 00:45:49.100 align:middle line:84% We didn't have a story to go with it. 00:45:49.100 --> 00:45:51.050 align:middle line:84% We were simply doing things mechanically, 00:45:51.050 --> 00:45:53.550 align:middle line:90% to keep ourselves occupied. 00:45:53.550 --> 00:45:59.640 align:middle line:84% After a pause Grady commanded, march back, and so we did. 00:45:59.640 --> 00:46:02.160 align:middle line:84% At home that evening, I lay down in the cool grass 00:46:02.160 --> 00:46:05.290 align:middle line:84% of our backyard staring up at the sky. 00:46:05.290 --> 00:46:07.770 align:middle line:84% And as the stars pierced through the growing darkness, 00:46:07.770 --> 00:46:11.430 align:middle line:84% I imagined eternity, my body hurtling through space 00:46:11.430 --> 00:46:17.313 align:middle line:84% without end, the Earth tiny, insignificant. 00:46:17.313 --> 00:46:19.730 align:middle line:84% [RECORDING CUTS OUT] --any traditional religious training. 00:46:19.730 --> 00:46:21.440 align:middle line:84% My parents had once been Mormons-- 00:46:21.440 --> 00:46:23.840 align:middle line:84% my mother from a Mormon pioneer family, 00:46:23.840 --> 00:46:26.840 align:middle line:84% her mother's father fleeing US marshals into Mexico 00:46:26.840 --> 00:46:30.470 align:middle line:84% to practice polygamy in the late-19th century. 00:46:30.470 --> 00:46:34.610 align:middle line:84% But my parents, before I was born, had left the church. 00:46:34.610 --> 00:46:36.770 align:middle line:84% For years we dreaded the visits of church elders 00:46:36.770 --> 00:46:39.710 align:middle line:84% who dropped by unannounced to discuss scripture and bring us 00:46:39.710 --> 00:46:41.090 align:middle line:90% back into the fold. 00:46:41.090 --> 00:46:43.040 align:middle line:84% They seemed like comic figures to me 00:46:43.040 --> 00:46:46.430 align:middle line:84% in their uniformity-- black slacks, white shirts, 00:46:46.430 --> 00:46:50.300 align:middle line:84% long dark ties, their voices steady and too sincere. 00:46:50.300 --> 00:46:52.990 align:middle line:90% 00:46:52.990 --> 00:46:55.480 align:middle line:84% Their faith struck me as something quaint, left over 00:46:55.480 --> 00:46:56.650 align:middle line:90% from distant history. 00:46:56.650 --> 00:46:59.320 align:middle line:84% If I was home alone when they knocked, I wouldn't answer. 00:46:59.320 --> 00:47:02.650 align:middle line:84% I'd run giggling from the door to the bathroom, where, 00:47:02.650 --> 00:47:04.330 align:middle line:84% by standing on the edge of the tub, 00:47:04.330 --> 00:47:07.510 align:middle line:84% I could see them out the high window. 00:47:07.510 --> 00:47:09.970 align:middle line:84% I grew eventually to think of religion and everything 00:47:09.970 --> 00:47:12.820 align:middle line:84% associated with it, including religious painting and music, 00:47:12.820 --> 00:47:14.200 align:middle line:90% as foolish. 00:47:14.200 --> 00:47:16.120 align:middle line:84% Until I was in my 20s, I couldn't 00:47:16.120 --> 00:47:18.430 align:middle line:84% stand listening to choirs, which I associated 00:47:18.430 --> 00:47:23.230 align:middle line:84% with church and voices raised in praise of God's creation. 00:47:23.230 --> 00:47:27.340 align:middle line:84% Mozart's C minor mass made me embarrassed for the naivety 00:47:27.340 --> 00:47:28.240 align:middle line:90% of such a genius. 00:47:28.240 --> 00:47:31.970 align:middle line:90% 00:47:31.970 --> 00:47:34.340 align:middle line:84% To regain my equilibrium, then, when 00:47:34.340 --> 00:47:38.420 align:middle line:84% seized by death terrors, terror I suffered for many years, 00:47:38.420 --> 00:47:40.040 align:middle line:90% I created my own ritual-- 00:47:40.040 --> 00:47:42.350 align:middle line:90% a private exorcism. 00:47:42.350 --> 00:47:44.990 align:middle line:84% Running to my room lying on my back on the bed 00:47:44.990 --> 00:47:47.870 align:middle line:84% whenever the fear struck, feeling as though my body were 00:47:47.870 --> 00:47:50.930 align:middle line:84% hurtling through space through infinity, I'd chant, 00:47:50.930 --> 00:47:54.890 align:middle line:84% Mary had a little lamb whose fleece was white as snow. 00:47:54.890 --> 00:47:58.850 align:middle line:84% I stiffen my arms at my sides, my hands clenched into fists, 00:47:58.850 --> 00:48:04.850 align:middle line:84% and shut my eyes tight, chanting the whole verse over and over 00:48:04.850 --> 00:48:07.610 align:middle line:84% under my breath, until my consciousness was so 00:48:07.610 --> 00:48:10.670 align:middle line:84% absorbed in the rhythm and music of the poem, 00:48:10.670 --> 00:48:13.370 align:middle line:90% death could find no place in me. 00:48:13.370 --> 00:48:16.580 align:middle line:84% Gradually, I'd feel as if my body were returning, falling 00:48:16.580 --> 00:48:18.650 align:middle line:90% from space now toward Earth. 00:48:18.650 --> 00:48:20.300 align:middle line:84% Aware finally of where I actually 00:48:20.300 --> 00:48:23.270 align:middle line:84% lay bound to the planet, my arms and eyelids 00:48:23.270 --> 00:48:26.900 align:middle line:84% would relax a little, and I'd begin an internal journey. 00:48:26.900 --> 00:48:29.090 align:middle line:84% My body would feel as if it were shrinking, 00:48:29.090 --> 00:48:32.690 align:middle line:84% or as if I had two bodies, one inside the other. 00:48:32.690 --> 00:48:35.030 align:middle line:84% The inner body would then grow smaller and smaller, 00:48:35.030 --> 00:48:37.730 align:middle line:84% falling into my real body, into the inner space 00:48:37.730 --> 00:48:40.190 align:middle line:90% of my own empty self. 00:48:40.190 --> 00:48:42.920 align:middle line:84% I'd have to begin a new chant to call it back-- 00:48:42.920 --> 00:48:45.800 align:middle line:90% a counting chant-- 00:48:45.800 --> 00:48:48.170 align:middle line:90% 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3-- 00:48:48.170 --> 00:48:51.200 align:middle line:84% until the words were pure sound, a filament 00:48:51.200 --> 00:48:54.470 align:middle line:84% of sound running through my veins. 00:48:54.470 --> 00:48:56.330 align:middle line:84% At a point of near unconsciousness, 00:48:56.330 --> 00:48:58.370 align:middle line:84% I'd explode into a standing position 00:48:58.370 --> 00:49:02.180 align:middle line:84% and walk frantically to and fro in my bedroom, shaking my hands 00:49:02.180 --> 00:49:06.230 align:middle line:84% and head to expel the evil feeling of oblivion, anxiety 00:49:06.230 --> 00:49:07.850 align:middle line:90% draining from my muscles. 00:49:07.850 --> 00:49:10.880 align:middle line:84% If it was night, I could now lie down and sleep. 00:49:10.880 --> 00:49:12.680 align:middle line:84% If I'd suffered a daytime terror, 00:49:12.680 --> 00:49:15.020 align:middle line:84% I'd look for somebody, anybody I knew, 00:49:15.020 --> 00:49:17.030 align:middle line:84% and strike up a conversation in hopes 00:49:17.030 --> 00:49:20.060 align:middle line:84% of re-entering the normal unselfconscious 00:49:20.060 --> 00:49:22.930 align:middle line:90% rhythm of life." 00:49:22.930 --> 00:49:23.770 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:49:23.770 --> 00:49:26.820 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:49:26.820 --> 00:49:36.000 align:middle line:90%