WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.080 align:middle line:84% Well, now I'm going to do what we poets love to do, 00:00:04.080 --> 00:00:07.290 align:middle line:90% is just jump off the deep end-- 00:00:07.290 --> 00:00:10.530 align:middle line:84% jump off the diving board into the deep end. 00:00:10.530 --> 00:00:14.670 align:middle line:84% A brand new poem, finished maybe this morning. 00:00:14.670 --> 00:00:16.510 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:16.510 --> 00:00:17.255 align:middle line:90% 00:00:17.255 --> 00:00:19.380 align:middle line:84% But I've been working on it for a couple of months. 00:00:19.380 --> 00:00:23.790 align:middle line:84% I spent a week in the Galapagos with my wonderful grandson, 00:00:23.790 --> 00:00:29.970 align:middle line:84% Lincoln, who's a 24-year-old intellectual who 00:00:29.970 --> 00:00:35.820 align:middle line:84% is tending bar in Brooklyn and reading a lot of great books. 00:00:35.820 --> 00:00:40.710 align:middle line:84% So this sequence is a sequence of nine poems 00:00:40.710 --> 00:00:43.620 align:middle line:84% within this whole series called Galapagos. 00:00:43.620 --> 00:00:46.372 align:middle line:90% Each has a title. 00:00:46.372 --> 00:00:47.830 align:middle line:84% All of them are set in the islands. 00:00:47.830 --> 00:00:48.997 align:middle line:90% That should be really clear. 00:00:48.997 --> 00:00:50.880 align:middle line:84% The first two are set in the city of Quito. 00:00:50.880 --> 00:00:54.300 align:middle line:84% We have to spend a little time in Quito. 00:00:54.300 --> 00:00:57.780 align:middle line:84% One Teleferico, this fabulous cable car 00:00:57.780 --> 00:00:59.100 align:middle line:90% that goes up above the city. 00:00:59.100 --> 00:01:02.580 align:middle line:90% And one basilica, which has-- 00:01:02.580 --> 00:01:08.190 align:middle line:84% you know how old Catholic cathedrals have gargoyles 00:01:08.190 --> 00:01:10.380 align:middle line:90% to keep the monsters away. 00:01:10.380 --> 00:01:12.690 align:middle line:84% They put monsters all around because the monsters 00:01:12.690 --> 00:01:14.820 align:middle line:84% are already here, go somewhere else if you monsters 00:01:14.820 --> 00:01:16.770 align:middle line:90% want to find a place. 00:01:16.770 --> 00:01:19.140 align:middle line:84% But the weird thing about this basilica 00:01:19.140 --> 00:01:21.900 align:middle line:84% is that the gargoyles are like a natural history 00:01:21.900 --> 00:01:24.488 align:middle line:84% encyclopedia of the animals of the Galapagos. 00:01:24.488 --> 00:01:25.530 align:middle line:90% They're not scary at all. 00:01:25.530 --> 00:01:26.430 align:middle line:90% They're fabulous. 00:01:26.430 --> 00:01:29.220 align:middle line:84% So I don't know what kind of radical biologists 00:01:29.220 --> 00:01:31.080 align:middle line:84% went over to the Vatican to say, would it 00:01:31.080 --> 00:01:34.800 align:middle line:84% be OK if we dispense with the monsters this time? 00:01:34.800 --> 00:01:38.100 align:middle line:84% They make a slight cameo appearance here. 00:01:38.100 --> 00:01:42.300 align:middle line:84% Galapagos, it has an epigraph from the great writer John 00:01:42.300 --> 00:01:43.680 align:middle line:90% Berger, who died recently. 00:01:43.680 --> 00:01:48.180 align:middle line:84% One of my favorite writers, as my students know. 00:01:48.180 --> 00:01:51.210 align:middle line:84% And what she said, "the relation between what we see 00:01:51.210 --> 00:01:55.550 align:middle line:84% and what we know is never settled." 00:01:55.550 --> 00:01:56.630 align:middle line:90% One. 00:01:56.630 --> 00:01:58.570 align:middle line:90% Teleferico. 00:01:58.570 --> 00:02:00.560 align:middle line:90% "First, the continent. 00:02:00.560 --> 00:02:04.370 align:middle line:84% Rock solid at the knees of Volcan Pichincha 00:02:04.370 --> 00:02:07.400 align:middle line:90% to begin the song of beginnings. 00:02:07.400 --> 00:02:11.330 align:middle line:84% What soil, what plants agree to thin air 00:02:11.330 --> 00:02:13.190 align:middle line:90% two miles above the sea? 00:02:13.190 --> 00:02:16.160 align:middle line:84% Which is nowhere to be seen from this height. 00:02:16.160 --> 00:02:19.640 align:middle line:84% Where clouds of mask range after range 00:02:19.640 --> 00:02:22.640 align:middle line:84% that part Quito from the Pacific. 00:02:22.640 --> 00:02:28.565 align:middle line:84% Spiky grass and tuffets of a tough collective weed, azorella 00:02:28.565 --> 00:02:33.020 align:middle line:84% has built its own soil, amassing the cushion on which it sits. 00:02:33.020 --> 00:02:37.250 align:middle line:84% Waxy spears for leaves, yellow asteroid flowers. 00:02:37.250 --> 00:02:41.090 align:middle line:84% A genius plant, rooting on pumice, decaying its way, 00:02:41.090 --> 00:02:44.030 align:middle line:90% self composting to its future. 00:02:44.030 --> 00:02:47.750 align:middle line:84% The city diminutive below, scattered in the valley 00:02:47.750 --> 00:02:49.370 align:middle line:90% like a handful of dice. 00:02:49.370 --> 00:02:53.990 align:middle line:84% And everywhere at altitude, communication towers, 00:02:53.990 --> 00:02:58.550 align:middle line:84% steel grid work mounted with disks, and drums, receptors, 00:02:58.550 --> 00:02:59.810 align:middle line:90% and projectors. 00:02:59.810 --> 00:03:03.850 align:middle line:84% Reaching out, so needful to be in touch. 00:03:03.850 --> 00:03:10.910 align:middle line:84% La Dolorosa watching from the quiet of her sanctuary." 00:03:10.910 --> 00:03:11.930 align:middle line:90% Two. 00:03:11.930 --> 00:03:13.610 align:middle line:90% City. 00:03:13.610 --> 00:03:15.730 align:middle line:90% "What is a city? 00:03:15.730 --> 00:03:18.865 align:middle line:84% The way we live in our numerousness. 00:03:18.865 --> 00:03:20.830 align:middle line:90% What is a city? 00:03:20.830 --> 00:03:24.490 align:middle line:84% The place where water gathers in cisterns. 00:03:24.490 --> 00:03:26.200 align:middle line:90% What is a city? 00:03:26.200 --> 00:03:31.310 align:middle line:84% The place where smoke lingers on its way to the sky. 00:03:31.310 --> 00:03:33.080 align:middle line:90% What is a city? 00:03:33.080 --> 00:03:36.980 align:middle line:84% A room in the Animal House for people. 00:03:36.980 --> 00:03:39.680 align:middle line:90% What is a city? 00:03:39.680 --> 00:03:42.950 align:middle line:84% The place where animals are guardians, 00:03:42.950 --> 00:03:48.490 align:middle line:84% leaping from the parapets, but never falling." 00:03:48.490 --> 00:03:49.540 align:middle line:90% Three. 00:03:49.540 --> 00:03:51.710 align:middle line:90% Islands. 00:03:51.710 --> 00:03:54.440 align:middle line:84% "Whatever lives on Isabela, Fernandino, 00:03:54.440 --> 00:03:58.940 align:middle line:84% Santiago flew, or swam, or drifted on a mat of weeds 00:03:58.940 --> 00:04:01.280 align:middle line:90% and landed on hardened lava. 00:04:01.280 --> 00:04:04.700 align:middle line:84% Ropy swirls of rock, motion frozen, 00:04:04.700 --> 00:04:08.660 align:middle line:84% but apparent in patterns left on black ground. 00:04:08.660 --> 00:04:13.490 align:middle line:84% Where only one plant, a spindly yellowish red lacewort 00:04:13.490 --> 00:04:14.960 align:middle line:90% cares to root. 00:04:14.960 --> 00:04:18.350 align:middle line:84% And rooting, begins to think, this could work. 00:04:18.350 --> 00:04:22.050 align:middle line:84% The way a mine does after thinking, I'm done. 00:04:22.050 --> 00:04:24.530 align:middle line:84% There's nothing left for me to say, or do, 00:04:24.530 --> 00:04:27.500 align:middle line:90% or love in a world of wounds. 00:04:27.500 --> 00:04:31.490 align:middle line:84% Then some little tendril reaches out from the split seed 00:04:31.490 --> 00:04:35.720 align:middle line:84% that a seabird has carried by accident in its webbed foot. 00:04:35.720 --> 00:04:39.470 align:middle line:84% And a story begins and branches out, and finds the light, 00:04:39.470 --> 00:04:42.200 align:middle line:84% and doesn't care how little rain will fall. 00:04:42.200 --> 00:04:46.100 align:middle line:84% As long as it has a place to fix itself and sift the mist 00:04:46.100 --> 00:04:49.640 align:middle line:84% that blows inshore thanks to the music of the spheres. 00:04:49.640 --> 00:04:51.740 align:middle line:84% And maybe, as the tendrils grow, they 00:04:51.740 --> 00:04:54.440 align:middle line:84% find a hostile place has become a home. 00:04:54.440 --> 00:04:57.230 align:middle line:84% And the seed has redefined the word 00:04:57.230 --> 00:05:02.480 align:middle line:84% it is because all it ever wanted was to begin again. 00:05:02.480 --> 00:05:05.390 align:middle line:90% And so." 00:05:05.390 --> 00:05:06.440 align:middle line:90% Four. 00:05:06.440 --> 00:05:08.240 align:middle line:90% Iguana. 00:05:08.240 --> 00:05:09.170 align:middle line:90% "Oh, sure. 00:05:09.170 --> 00:05:13.370 align:middle line:84% One or two beady skinned monsters, ridged back, 00:05:13.370 --> 00:05:15.380 align:middle line:84% long clawed, blunt headed might have 00:05:15.380 --> 00:05:19.310 align:middle line:84% made it floating from Ecuador on a broken tree limb. 00:05:19.310 --> 00:05:23.600 align:middle line:84% But how to explain thousands upon thousands queued up 00:05:23.600 --> 00:05:26.900 align:middle line:84% in group salutes to the sun or lying together 00:05:26.900 --> 00:05:31.580 align:middle line:84% by dozens disguised as rocks to spoon. 00:05:31.580 --> 00:05:36.330 align:middle line:84% One spiny claw draped over the shoulder of another. 00:05:36.330 --> 00:05:40.250 align:middle line:84% And then they wake, scurry, and waddling gait to water's edge. 00:05:40.250 --> 00:05:44.210 align:middle line:84% Dive and swim, gleaning seaweed off underwater rock. 00:05:44.210 --> 00:05:47.630 align:middle line:84% Adapted, we say, like a novel to movie. 00:05:47.630 --> 00:05:50.780 align:middle line:84% From land feeders to marine machines. 00:05:50.780 --> 00:05:52.190 align:middle line:90% No predatory neighbors. 00:05:52.190 --> 00:05:55.070 align:middle line:90% It's just one long beach party. 00:05:55.070 --> 00:05:58.490 align:middle line:84% A sea lion or two lumbering up to sleep on the sand. 00:05:58.490 --> 00:06:03.170 align:middle line:84% Good friends, says the guide, about every living thing. 00:06:03.170 --> 00:06:05.180 align:middle line:84% Though of course, eating is a factor. 00:06:05.180 --> 00:06:06.830 align:middle line:90% Shark takes seal pup. 00:06:06.830 --> 00:06:09.350 align:middle line:90% Hawk takes turtle egg. 00:06:09.350 --> 00:06:12.740 align:middle line:84% Flightless cormorants seem the norm. 00:06:12.740 --> 00:06:15.440 align:middle line:90% Hanging out micro wings to dry. 00:06:15.440 --> 00:06:18.890 align:middle line:84% They gave up building big wings, so easy 00:06:18.890 --> 00:06:20.840 align:middle line:90% was the catch along shore. 00:06:20.840 --> 00:06:23.270 align:middle line:84% In time, their prey will learn to fear, 00:06:23.270 --> 00:06:25.880 align:middle line:84% but now the immigrants make it look 00:06:25.880 --> 00:06:31.010 align:middle line:84% easy to inhabit a place that never before was home. 00:06:31.010 --> 00:06:32.540 align:middle line:90% New land. 00:06:32.540 --> 00:06:33.710 align:middle line:90% No springs. 00:06:33.710 --> 00:06:34.910 align:middle line:90% No rivers. 00:06:34.910 --> 00:06:38.675 align:middle line:84% Just every organism's joy to thrive." 00:06:38.675 --> 00:06:41.400 align:middle line:90% 00:06:41.400 --> 00:06:42.630 align:middle line:90% Five. 00:06:42.630 --> 00:06:43.860 align:middle line:90% Tortoise. 00:06:43.860 --> 00:06:46.020 align:middle line:90% "The mammals did not make it. 00:06:46.020 --> 00:06:49.620 align:middle line:84% Maybe a mouse or rat, until people brought them. 00:06:49.620 --> 00:06:52.680 align:middle line:90% Mammal to mammal transmission. 00:06:52.680 --> 00:06:55.470 align:middle line:84% Whalers and buccaneers, hundreds of years of them, 00:06:55.470 --> 00:07:00.870 align:middle line:84% their graffiti still play on the rock wall cinema at Tagus Cove. 00:07:00.870 --> 00:07:02.880 align:middle line:84% So many months at sea they carried 00:07:02.880 --> 00:07:06.930 align:middle line:84% cows and goats and chickens in the hold for food. 00:07:06.930 --> 00:07:09.870 align:middle line:84% Barrels and barrels of water, gambling 00:07:09.870 --> 00:07:14.010 align:middle line:84% they could refill the casks and livestock pens as the stores 00:07:14.010 --> 00:07:14.730 align:middle line:90% fell empty. 00:07:14.730 --> 00:07:17.490 align:middle line:84% But who knew land could be so stingy. 00:07:17.490 --> 00:07:22.560 align:middle line:84% Not a cactus to pierce, not a squirrel hair or hind to shoot. 00:07:22.560 --> 00:07:25.320 align:middle line:84% Perhaps some casks of salted fish 00:07:25.320 --> 00:07:30.240 align:middle line:84% that could be refurbished, given clemency by the sea. 00:07:30.240 --> 00:07:34.650 align:middle line:84% So when they moored in a godless place, for Europeans 00:07:34.650 --> 00:07:37.950 align:middle line:84% had forgotten their early gods and goddesses, 00:07:37.950 --> 00:07:42.210 align:middle line:84% who lived disguised as goat or rock or laurel, 00:07:42.210 --> 00:07:45.870 align:middle line:84% and thought it took a church to make a place holy. 00:07:45.870 --> 00:07:50.670 align:middle line:84% When they found the giant tortoises' domed carapace that 00:07:50.670 --> 00:07:53.190 align:middle line:84% reminded them of the saddle and made 00:07:53.190 --> 00:07:57.660 align:middle line:84% it easy to stack the beasts, they dumped the goats 00:07:57.660 --> 00:08:00.480 align:middle line:84% and piled up meat that could survive 00:08:00.480 --> 00:08:05.775 align:middle line:84% a year without food or water in reptilian cargo sleep." 00:08:05.775 --> 00:08:09.110 align:middle line:90% 00:08:09.110 --> 00:08:10.220 align:middle line:90% Six. 00:08:10.220 --> 00:08:12.860 align:middle line:90% Judas Goat. 00:08:12.860 --> 00:08:14.420 align:middle line:90% "Abandoned goats took hold. 00:08:14.420 --> 00:08:16.580 align:middle line:84% And more, they ripped the vegetation bare. 00:08:16.580 --> 00:08:19.790 align:middle line:84% Places where tree ferns had learned to catch the fog, 00:08:19.790 --> 00:08:23.840 align:middle line:84% morning glory vines to climb, and shrubs to fill a caldera. 00:08:23.840 --> 00:08:27.350 align:middle line:84% Because land is always learning, but had no 00:08:27.350 --> 00:08:31.550 align:middle line:84% means without predators to teach the goats how to maintain. 00:08:31.550 --> 00:08:36.860 align:middle line:84% Soon 80,000 ruminators turned forests to dust, meadows 00:08:36.860 --> 00:08:41.270 align:middle line:84% to stubs, tortoises starved or died of thirst, 00:08:41.270 --> 00:08:44.390 align:middle line:84% their only water came from plants. 00:08:44.390 --> 00:08:47.990 align:middle line:84% All the island's labor to make itself fruitful 00:08:47.990 --> 00:08:52.310 align:middle line:84% led to helicopter gunners, foot teams and dogs, a few goats 00:08:52.310 --> 00:08:53.720 align:middle line:90% got radio collars. 00:08:53.720 --> 00:08:56.120 align:middle line:84% And when they ran to hide with kin, 00:08:56.120 --> 00:09:00.020 align:middle line:84% signaled unaware the fellow targets. 00:09:00.020 --> 00:09:06.020 align:middle line:84% So natural history too, the epic of planetary advance, 00:09:06.020 --> 00:09:08.960 align:middle line:90% sings with calculated loss. 00:09:08.960 --> 00:09:12.020 align:middle line:90% I sing of arms and the man. 00:09:12.020 --> 00:09:16.190 align:middle line:84% But when the goats were cleared, Scalesia trees, 00:09:16.190 --> 00:09:20.570 align:middle line:84% Darwinia thamnos shrubs, ferns and club moss 00:09:20.570 --> 00:09:23.360 align:middle line:90% sang the land green again. 00:09:23.360 --> 00:09:26.885 align:middle line:84% Only the hunters had nightmares, knowing the cost." 00:09:26.885 --> 00:09:30.110 align:middle line:90% 00:09:30.110 --> 00:09:32.360 align:middle line:90% Moon. 00:09:32.360 --> 00:09:36.380 align:middle line:84% "Night on the moon deck, talk in the dark, lunar light spilling 00:09:36.380 --> 00:09:38.570 align:middle line:90% across the calm black sea. 00:09:38.570 --> 00:09:42.410 align:middle line:84% Can you professorize this, grandma?" 00:09:42.410 --> 00:09:44.570 align:middle line:90% I love my grandson. 00:09:44.570 --> 00:09:47.300 align:middle line:84% "Can you professorize this, grandma? 00:09:47.300 --> 00:09:50.030 align:middle line:84% Why the moonlight shines in direct line to me. 00:09:50.030 --> 00:09:53.210 align:middle line:84% My moon, it shines in direct line to you too. 00:09:53.210 --> 00:09:54.200 align:middle line:90% No, my moon. 00:09:54.200 --> 00:09:55.820 align:middle line:90% So why is that? 00:09:55.820 --> 00:09:57.410 align:middle line:90% What is light? 00:09:57.410 --> 00:10:01.040 align:middle line:84% Wave or particle, that old beef doesn't help. 00:10:01.040 --> 00:10:02.720 align:middle line:90% It has to be about perception. 00:10:02.720 --> 00:10:07.310 align:middle line:84% Something in us that screens out the scope and spin of space. 00:10:07.310 --> 00:10:11.090 align:middle line:84% Turning the incomprehensible into a shimmer 00:10:11.090 --> 00:10:13.010 align:middle line:90% that spills at our feet. 00:10:13.010 --> 00:10:18.080 align:middle line:84% Making the night sky wonder what we are and come close enough 00:10:18.080 --> 00:10:19.550 align:middle line:90% to try to see." 00:10:19.550 --> 00:10:22.840 align:middle line:90% 00:10:22.840 --> 00:10:23.340 align:middle line:90% Eight. 00:10:23.340 --> 00:10:25.480 align:middle line:90% The Guide. 00:10:25.480 --> 00:10:28.780 align:middle line:84% "His father wanted him to become a diplomat. 00:10:28.780 --> 00:10:31.480 align:middle line:90% Marine biologist, what's that? 00:10:31.480 --> 00:10:33.220 align:middle line:84% Three months on the beach counting sea 00:10:33.220 --> 00:10:34.780 align:middle line:90% turtles emerging from eggs. 00:10:34.780 --> 00:10:38.560 align:middle line:84% Maybe 85 to a nest buried in sand. 00:10:38.560 --> 00:10:40.750 align:middle line:84% They feel vibrations from the tide 00:10:40.750 --> 00:10:45.610 align:middle line:84% then hatch, dig out, and crawl to get inside the moon riled 00:10:45.610 --> 00:10:47.680 align:middle line:90% rhythm of the sea. 00:10:47.680 --> 00:10:51.790 align:middle line:84% But some went by mistake inland to a stagnant lagoon. 00:10:51.790 --> 00:10:54.940 align:middle line:84% The student tried to save them, put them in the sea. 00:10:54.940 --> 00:10:56.740 align:middle line:90% Wrong, the teacher said. 00:10:56.740 --> 00:11:00.580 align:middle line:84% An orientation error, if repeated in the gene chain, 00:11:00.580 --> 00:11:03.280 align:middle line:90% could ruin the species. 00:11:03.280 --> 00:11:05.350 align:middle line:84% The student ate nothing but lobsters, 00:11:05.350 --> 00:11:08.080 align:middle line:90% hand caught, for three months. 00:11:08.080 --> 00:11:09.970 align:middle line:90% That's why he hates them now." 00:11:09.970 --> 00:11:12.590 align:middle line:90% 00:11:12.590 --> 00:11:14.330 align:middle line:90% And finally, Nine. 00:11:14.330 --> 00:11:16.530 align:middle line:90% Fins. 00:11:16.530 --> 00:11:18.660 align:middle line:90% "Imposters in the water. 00:11:18.660 --> 00:11:21.570 align:middle line:90% We look ridiculous. 00:11:21.570 --> 00:11:22.980 align:middle line:90% But who's watching us? 00:11:22.980 --> 00:11:25.050 align:middle line:90% Plastic fins and masks. 00:11:25.050 --> 00:11:28.260 align:middle line:84% False skin zipped on to protect from cold. 00:11:28.260 --> 00:11:32.400 align:middle line:84% Pallid faces down on the platter of the sea. 00:11:32.400 --> 00:11:37.440 align:middle line:84% We are nothing like the orange anemone glued to rock wall, 00:11:37.440 --> 00:11:39.720 align:middle line:90% combing the slosh with its-- 00:11:39.720 --> 00:11:40.260 align:middle line:90% what? ? 00:11:40.260 --> 00:11:41.340 align:middle line:90% Tentacles? 00:11:41.340 --> 00:11:45.330 align:middle line:84% But then again, the anemone is an animal 00:11:45.330 --> 00:11:47.760 align:middle line:90% pretending to be a plant. 00:11:47.760 --> 00:11:51.930 align:middle line:84% The sea lion is a mammal pretending to be a fish. 00:11:51.930 --> 00:11:55.260 align:middle line:84% Is a marine iguana a lizard pretending to be an eel? 00:11:55.260 --> 00:12:00.420 align:middle line:84% Parrot fish, surgeon fish, sergeant major, harlequin rats, 00:12:00.420 --> 00:12:02.970 align:middle line:90% fakers all. 00:12:02.970 --> 00:12:07.940 align:middle line:84% Or so our words would make them because we can't quite 00:12:07.940 --> 00:12:12.650 align:middle line:84% believe the luck to be a thing with eyes looking 00:12:12.650 --> 00:12:15.140 align:middle line:90% at anything else with eyes. 00:12:15.140 --> 00:12:20.880 align:middle line:84% Can't quite bear the weight of our terrestrial burden. 00:12:20.880 --> 00:12:24.950 align:middle line:84% So we float and kick, heads down, 00:12:24.950 --> 00:12:31.570 align:middle line:84% imagining what we might have been or will become." 00:12:31.570 --> 00:12:32.072 align:middle line:90%