WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.430 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.430 --> 00:00:07.230 align:middle line:84% Two more poems-- see if we can bring a little light 00:00:07.230 --> 00:00:08.355 align:middle line:90% into this space. 00:00:08.355 --> 00:00:17.450 align:middle line:90% 00:00:17.450 --> 00:00:19.600 align:middle line:84% This was a poem-- it was written in a renga, which 00:00:19.600 --> 00:00:27.040 align:middle line:84% is a very elaborate Japanese form, which is a chain poem 00:00:27.040 --> 00:00:29.650 align:middle line:84% form which has been Americanized, 00:00:29.650 --> 00:00:34.600 align:middle line:84% which means that all the rules were dropped, 00:00:34.600 --> 00:00:38.800 align:middle line:84% except one, that the poem that you receive, the last line, 00:00:38.800 --> 00:00:41.410 align:middle line:90% becomes your title. 00:00:41.410 --> 00:00:45.400 align:middle line:84% So the title of this, which was written in a renga with other 00:00:45.400 --> 00:00:50.170 align:middle line:84% women, "Of a Sun She Can Remember. " 00:00:50.170 --> 00:00:55.150 align:middle line:84% And it is a true story of the day that Annie Sullivan spilled 00:00:55.150 --> 00:01:00.100 align:middle line:84% water into one of Helen Keller's hands and spelled "water" 00:01:00.100 --> 00:01:02.110 align:middle line:90% into the other. 00:01:02.110 --> 00:01:04.660 align:middle line:84% So it also has this nice circumstance 00:01:04.660 --> 00:01:06.760 align:middle line:90% that this was something-- 00:01:06.760 --> 00:01:11.390 align:middle line:84% words from one woman's hand to another. 00:01:11.390 --> 00:01:16.810 align:middle line:84% It's very much my notion of what language is for. 00:01:16.810 --> 00:01:20.110 align:middle line:84% And if it had an epigraph, I think 00:01:20.110 --> 00:01:22.330 align:middle line:84% it would be that line from Theodore Roethke, 00:01:22.330 --> 00:01:25.330 align:middle line:84% "In a dark time, the eye begins to see." 00:01:25.330 --> 00:01:29.070 align:middle line:90% 00:01:29.070 --> 00:01:30.990 align:middle line:84% "After they had been in the woods, 00:01:30.990 --> 00:01:35.310 align:middle line:84% after the living tongue woke Helen's hand, afterwards, 00:01:35.310 --> 00:01:38.610 align:middle line:84% they went back to the little house of exile, 00:01:38.610 --> 00:01:43.290 align:middle line:84% Annie and Helen, who had lived in the silent dark, 00:01:43.290 --> 00:01:46.980 align:middle line:84% like a bat without radar in the back of a cave. 00:01:46.980 --> 00:01:49.650 align:middle line:84% And she picked up the broken doll 00:01:49.650 --> 00:01:53.940 align:middle line:84% she had dismembered that morning in her rage. 00:01:53.940 --> 00:01:58.320 align:middle line:84% And limb by limb, her agile fingers moving 00:01:58.320 --> 00:02:02.970 align:middle line:84% with their fine intelligence over each part, 00:02:02.970 --> 00:02:07.950 align:middle line:84% she re-membered the little figure of the human. 00:02:07.950 --> 00:02:12.900 align:middle line:84% And though she was inside now, and it was all still dark, 00:02:12.900 --> 00:02:17.160 align:middle line:84% she remembered the missing sun with a slow wash of warmth 00:02:17.160 --> 00:02:20.670 align:middle line:84% on her shoulders, on her back, as when 00:02:20.670 --> 00:02:23.070 align:middle line:84% you step shivering out of a dank shade 00:02:23.070 --> 00:02:26.040 align:middle line:90% into the sun's sudden balm. 00:02:26.040 --> 00:02:29.190 align:middle line:84% And as the warmth spread, it felt 00:02:29.190 --> 00:02:31.650 align:middle line:90% like the other side of water. 00:02:31.650 --> 00:02:35.880 align:middle line:84% And that is how she knew how light on water looks. 00:02:35.880 --> 00:02:40.590 align:middle line:84% And she put her outspread hands into the idea of it. 00:02:40.590 --> 00:02:43.290 align:middle line:84% And she lifted the lines of light, 00:02:43.290 --> 00:02:49.020 align:middle line:84% cross-hatched like a web, out of the water, and dripping, 00:02:49.020 --> 00:02:54.110 align:middle line:84% stretched a golden net of meaning in the light."