WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.510 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.510 --> 00:00:03.320 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read something not so quite so heavy here. 00:00:03.320 --> 00:00:06.090 align:middle line:90% 00:00:06.090 --> 00:00:09.780 align:middle line:84% It does have a little bit of OK, all right, what can I do, 00:00:09.780 --> 00:00:11.340 align:middle line:90% it's winter, OK. 00:00:11.340 --> 00:00:13.050 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:13.050 --> 00:00:13.890 align:middle line:90% All right, this is-- 00:00:13.890 --> 00:00:16.410 align:middle line:84% I live in Mount Baldy in Southern California, which 00:00:16.410 --> 00:00:18.090 align:middle line:84% is part of the San Gabriel Mountains. 00:00:18.090 --> 00:00:21.310 align:middle line:84% And Mount Baldy is 10,000 feet tall, 00:00:21.310 --> 00:00:23.700 align:middle line:84% it's one of the tallest mountains in the West. 00:00:23.700 --> 00:00:26.940 align:middle line:84% And it's actually today was a big snowstorm there. 00:00:26.940 --> 00:00:29.010 align:middle line:84% My husband who was coming is trapped. 00:00:29.010 --> 00:00:30.540 align:middle line:90% He couldn't drive to-- 00:00:30.540 --> 00:00:34.440 align:middle line:84% couldn't come here tonight because of the snowstorm. 00:00:34.440 --> 00:00:35.940 align:middle line:84% But we have a lot of bears, so we're 00:00:35.940 --> 00:00:40.380 align:middle line:84% surrounded by National Forest, the Angeles National Forest. 00:00:40.380 --> 00:00:44.730 align:middle line:84% And we have a pond, a natural pond, and so in the summer, 00:00:44.730 --> 00:00:45.540 align:middle line:90% bears come. 00:00:45.540 --> 00:00:48.630 align:middle line:84% Sometimes we'll look out and see in the fall too, 00:00:48.630 --> 00:00:50.520 align:middle line:84% and there will be-- because we have trout, 00:00:50.520 --> 00:00:52.230 align:middle line:90% rainbow trout in our pond. 00:00:52.230 --> 00:00:55.230 align:middle line:84% There will be bears in there, who are like, 00:00:55.230 --> 00:00:56.165 align:middle line:90% they need glasses. 00:00:56.165 --> 00:00:58.290 align:middle line:84% They're so nearsighted or something because they're 00:00:58.290 --> 00:00:59.490 align:middle line:90% like, where are the fish? 00:00:59.490 --> 00:01:00.260 align:middle line:90% Where are they? 00:01:00.260 --> 00:01:01.920 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:01.920 --> 00:01:05.069 align:middle line:84% They never catch them, they never catch them. 00:01:05.069 --> 00:01:06.060 align:middle line:90% But there they are. 00:01:06.060 --> 00:01:08.670 align:middle line:84% So this is about one of those day, night 00:01:08.670 --> 00:01:11.940 align:middle line:84% actually, evenings when there was a bear in our pond. 00:01:11.940 --> 00:01:15.270 align:middle line:90% "Late November Lament." 00:01:15.270 --> 00:01:19.260 align:middle line:84% Does our 6 foot bear mind getting drenched? 00:01:19.260 --> 00:01:21.450 align:middle line:90% This is what I ask at midnight. 00:01:21.450 --> 00:01:27.270 align:middle line:84% My head throbbing, rain is flinging its tirade 00:01:27.270 --> 00:01:28.860 align:middle line:90% against the panes. 00:01:28.860 --> 00:01:34.320 align:middle line:84% And since Halloween, he's camped under the pond deck, 00:01:34.320 --> 00:01:37.380 align:middle line:84% like some wayward deity coming out 00:01:37.380 --> 00:01:40.890 align:middle line:84% to plop heavily into the cold black waters, 00:01:40.890 --> 00:01:44.970 align:middle line:84% then standing shoulder deep, and swiveling his neck 00:01:44.970 --> 00:01:49.980 align:middle line:84% to catch the flash of trout that we've raised from fingerlings. 00:01:49.980 --> 00:01:53.010 align:middle line:84% Raised not to eat, but to rob the summer 00:01:53.010 --> 00:01:55.890 align:middle line:90% mosquitoes of our flesh. 00:01:55.890 --> 00:02:00.030 align:middle line:84% It's pouring down sheets now, but I can hear him, 00:02:00.030 --> 00:02:02.100 align:middle line:90% lumbering across the planks. 00:02:02.100 --> 00:02:03.780 align:middle line:90% It's not thunder. 00:02:03.780 --> 00:02:06.540 align:middle line:84% The yellow map of India on his chest, 00:02:06.540 --> 00:02:09.419 align:middle line:84% probably shining its strange beacon, 00:02:09.419 --> 00:02:13.140 align:middle line:84% and isn't he a lord of some sort? 00:02:13.140 --> 00:02:16.290 align:middle line:84% Isn't he the wilderness we came to desire, 00:02:16.290 --> 00:02:19.350 align:middle line:84% though not an extra, extra large, 00:02:19.350 --> 00:02:25.230 align:middle line:84% not so roughshod and sour-faced, not reeking of musk 00:02:25.230 --> 00:02:28.500 align:middle line:90% and garbage and brute force. 00:02:28.500 --> 00:02:33.000 align:middle line:84% Something about him makes me happy and sad. 00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:37.950 align:middle line:84% As if his mortal stench could pluck me out of myself 00:02:37.950 --> 00:02:42.450 align:middle line:84% and transform me into a goddess of prophecies. 00:02:42.450 --> 00:02:45.480 align:middle line:84% But that's just my painkillers talking. 00:02:45.480 --> 00:02:48.630 align:middle line:84% As the rain pummels the hungry bear 00:02:48.630 --> 00:02:52.230 align:middle line:84% is stewing sleep, who blinks away 00:02:52.230 --> 00:02:57.090 align:middle line:84% watery streamers as he turns his slurred gaze up 00:02:57.090 --> 00:02:59.010 align:middle line:90% to my lit window. 00:02:59.010 --> 00:03:03.780 align:middle line:84% As he issues sodden grunts into the patter, 00:03:03.780 --> 00:03:09.720 align:middle line:84% and later, loosens a pyramid of steaming shit next 00:03:09.720 --> 00:03:11.625 align:middle line:90% to my poet's bench. 00:03:11.625 --> 00:03:12.994 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:12.994 --> 00:03:15.480 align:middle line:90% 00:03:15.480 --> 00:03:16.920 align:middle line:90% And he did. 00:03:16.920 --> 00:03:19.198 align:middle line:84% It was like, this will serve you right. 00:03:19.198 --> 00:03:21.240 align:middle line:84% You know, you want to come here and write a poem? 00:03:21.240 --> 00:03:23.280 align:middle line:90% OK, write about that. 00:03:23.280 --> 00:03:25.665 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:03:25.665 --> 00:03:29.010 align:middle line:90% 00:03:29.010 --> 00:03:30.240 align:middle line:90% They do stink. 00:03:30.240 --> 00:03:32.370 align:middle line:84% If you get up close to them, they reek. 00:03:32.370 --> 00:03:33.400 align:middle line:90% I mean, it's amazing. 00:03:33.400 --> 00:03:35.820 align:middle line:84% I don't know if you've ever, in Alaska, Peggy, 00:03:35.820 --> 00:03:38.685 align:middle line:84% been close enough to smell how bad bears smell? 00:03:38.685 --> 00:03:41.310 align:middle line:90% 00:03:41.310 --> 00:03:44.100 align:middle line:84% OK, of course, they tend to go through garbage 00:03:44.100 --> 00:03:45.660 align:middle line:90% as part of the problem, right? 00:03:45.660 --> 00:03:48.060 align:middle line:84% When they live in neighborhoods, they come, 00:03:48.060 --> 00:03:50.430 align:middle line:84% it's too easy to go raid people's garbage cans 00:03:50.430 --> 00:03:53.790 align:middle line:84% rather than have to forage for the food, berries, and things, 00:03:53.790 --> 00:03:57.790 align:middle line:84% so that's probably partly why they stunk or he stunk. 00:03:57.790 --> 00:03:58.860 align:middle line:90% OK, last poem. 00:03:58.860 --> 00:04:03.610 align:middle line:90% 00:04:03.610 --> 00:04:05.500 align:middle line:84% OK, I hope I haven't gone too long. 00:04:05.500 --> 00:04:07.810 align:middle line:84% I haven't been doing very well keeping track. 00:04:07.810 --> 00:04:11.190 align:middle line:90% Am I-- OK, all right.