WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.630 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.630 --> 00:00:06.090 align:middle line:84% I'm going to skip now to the third book in this Collected, 00:00:06.090 --> 00:00:07.080 align:middle line:90% Thomas and Beulah. 00:00:07.080 --> 00:00:10.530 align:middle line:84% And I'll read only one poem, because it is a double sequence 00:00:10.530 --> 00:00:14.010 align:middle line:84% and that Stanley's class really stuck with me. 00:00:14.010 --> 00:00:16.540 align:middle line:84% I kept writing sequences, I never stopped. 00:00:16.540 --> 00:00:21.060 align:middle line:84% But I'm going to read one from Beulah's point of view. 00:00:21.060 --> 00:00:24.420 align:middle line:84% In this poem, just to give you a little bit of context, 00:00:24.420 --> 00:00:29.790 align:middle line:84% Beulah is doing something that Rilke used to say-- 00:00:29.790 --> 00:00:32.610 align:middle line:84% he used to talk about this activity, something 00:00:32.610 --> 00:00:34.530 align:middle line:90% that his mother let him do. 00:00:34.530 --> 00:00:40.170 align:middle line:84% She would put gloves on him and let him go into the parlor 00:00:40.170 --> 00:00:43.380 align:middle line:84% and dust, and he said he would wipe 00:00:43.380 --> 00:00:48.030 align:middle line:84% his hand across the surface and it would shine up at him clean. 00:00:48.030 --> 00:00:51.340 align:middle line:84% And that-- he compared that to recollection and recovering 00:00:51.340 --> 00:00:51.840 align:middle line:90% memory. 00:00:51.840 --> 00:00:54.780 align:middle line:84% And I kept thinking, that's not the kind of dusting 00:00:54.780 --> 00:00:58.710 align:middle line:84% I ever did, or my mother ever did, or her mother's mother. 00:00:58.710 --> 00:01:02.040 align:middle line:84% And so in a kind of a fit of pique, 00:01:02.040 --> 00:01:04.769 align:middle line:84% I decided that I was going to write a dusty poem, 00:01:04.769 --> 00:01:05.670 align:middle line:90% as it really was. 00:01:05.670 --> 00:01:08.190 align:middle line:90% 00:01:08.190 --> 00:01:11.300 align:middle line:90% "Dusting." 00:01:11.300 --> 00:01:13.670 align:middle line:90% "Every day a wilderness. 00:01:13.670 --> 00:01:15.800 align:middle line:90% No shade in sight. 00:01:15.800 --> 00:01:19.160 align:middle line:84% Beulah patient among knickknacks, the solarium 00:01:19.160 --> 00:01:23.060 align:middle line:84% a rage of light, a grain storm as her gray cloth 00:01:23.060 --> 00:01:26.060 align:middle line:90% brings dark wood to life. 00:01:26.060 --> 00:01:31.460 align:middle line:84% Under her hand, scrolls and crests gleam darker still. 00:01:31.460 --> 00:01:34.490 align:middle line:84% What was his name, that silly boy 00:01:34.490 --> 00:01:36.980 align:middle line:84% at the fair with the rifle booth? 00:01:36.980 --> 00:01:42.530 align:middle line:84% And his kiss, and the clear bowl with one bright fish, 00:01:42.530 --> 00:01:45.850 align:middle line:90% rippling wound. 00:01:45.850 --> 00:01:47.320 align:middle line:90% Not Michael. 00:01:47.320 --> 00:01:49.960 align:middle line:90% Something finer. 00:01:49.960 --> 00:01:55.180 align:middle line:84% Each dust stroke a deep breath, and the canary in bloom. 00:01:55.180 --> 00:01:58.810 align:middle line:84% Wavering memory, home from a dance, the front door 00:01:58.810 --> 00:02:01.540 align:middle line:84% blown open in the parlor in snow. 00:02:01.540 --> 00:02:03.730 align:middle line:84% She rushed the bowl to the stove, 00:02:03.730 --> 00:02:10.120 align:middle line:84% watched as the locket of ice dissolved and he swam free. 00:02:10.120 --> 00:02:13.540 align:middle line:84% That was years before father gave her up with her name, 00:02:13.540 --> 00:02:17.800 align:middle line:84% years before her name grew to mean promise, then desert 00:02:17.800 --> 00:02:19.570 align:middle line:90% and peace. 00:02:19.570 --> 00:02:28.160 align:middle line:84% Long before the shadow and son's accomplice, the tree, Maurice." 00:02:28.160 --> 00:02:29.000 align:middle line:90%