WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.760 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.760 --> 00:00:07.810 align:middle line:84% Here we have our ancient edition. 00:00:07.810 --> 00:00:11.800 align:middle line:90% This is Sappho, 630 BC. 00:00:11.800 --> 00:00:14.800 align:middle line:84% "Evening star who gathers everything shining, 00:00:14.800 --> 00:00:17.890 align:middle line:84% dawn scattered, you bring the sheep and the goats. 00:00:17.890 --> 00:00:20.395 align:middle line:84% You bring the child back to its mother." 00:00:20.395 --> 00:00:23.650 align:middle line:90% 00:00:23.650 --> 00:00:29.050 align:middle line:84% Now this one is Kay Ryan, and it's called "How Birds Sing." 00:00:29.050 --> 00:00:32.830 align:middle line:84% Kay Ryan is our national Poet Laureate right now. 00:00:32.830 --> 00:00:35.750 align:middle line:84% And she turned up by surprise at our celebration, 00:00:35.750 --> 00:00:37.015 align:middle line:90% which was great. 00:00:37.015 --> 00:00:40.240 align:middle line:90% 00:00:40.240 --> 00:00:45.930 align:middle line:90% This is the penguin house. 00:00:45.930 --> 00:00:49.050 align:middle line:84% And this piece that I selected was before the March 00:00:49.050 --> 00:00:50.320 align:middle line:90% of the Penguins. 00:00:50.320 --> 00:00:52.383 align:middle line:90% 00:00:52.383 --> 00:00:54.550 align:middle line:84% I'll read it, and then I'll tell you a little story. 00:00:54.550 --> 00:00:57.370 align:middle line:84% "The male penguin picks up a pebble in his bill, 00:00:57.370 --> 00:01:00.070 align:middle line:84% waddles over to a bird standing alone 00:01:00.070 --> 00:01:02.170 align:middle line:90% and solemnly lays it before it. 00:01:02.170 --> 00:01:04.840 align:middle line:84% If the stranger receives the pebble with a deep bow, 00:01:04.840 --> 00:01:06.790 align:middle line:84% then he has discovered his true mate." 00:01:06.790 --> 00:01:08.980 align:middle line:84% That's David Attenborough's Life on Earth. 00:01:08.980 --> 00:01:13.780 align:middle line:84% "This stone I set at your feet is my courtship gift to you 00:01:13.780 --> 00:01:18.190 align:middle line:84% at white summer's end on Antarctica's icy shore. 00:01:18.190 --> 00:01:21.730 align:middle line:84% Later, you lay your egg and ease it onto my feet. 00:01:21.730 --> 00:01:27.400 align:middle line:84% You turn and walk away, black going into blackness." 00:01:27.400 --> 00:01:30.400 align:middle line:84% I think the way that it coincided 00:01:30.400 --> 00:01:31.870 align:middle line:84% with the March of the Penguins may 00:01:31.870 --> 00:01:36.280 align:middle line:84% be why this has become this romantic destination 00:01:36.280 --> 00:01:37.870 align:middle line:90% spot for lovers. 00:01:37.870 --> 00:01:40.030 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:40.030 --> 00:01:42.130 align:middle line:84% Actually, the scientist I work with, 00:01:42.130 --> 00:01:44.470 align:middle line:84% Dan Wharton, who is just sublime, 00:01:44.470 --> 00:01:48.070 align:middle line:84% he's just really wonderful to work with. 00:01:48.070 --> 00:01:54.130 align:middle line:84% He did the Jon Stewart Show with this as his background, 00:01:54.130 --> 00:01:55.990 align:middle line:90% talking about-- 00:01:55.990 --> 00:01:59.740 align:middle line:84% in conversation with someone who was objecting 00:01:59.740 --> 00:02:03.970 align:middle line:84% to having penguins because they exhibited homosexual behavior. 00:02:03.970 --> 00:02:06.895 align:middle line:84% And Dan is incredibly droll and handled it beautifully. 00:02:06.895 --> 00:02:08.470 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] 00:02:08.470 --> 00:02:12.505 align:middle line:84% But it's become a place where people go to propose. 00:02:12.505 --> 00:02:19.450 align:middle line:84% [CHUCKLES] And I'll tell you, speaking of prose and memory, 00:02:19.450 --> 00:02:21.820 align:middle line:84% if you were proposed to at this place, 00:02:21.820 --> 00:02:25.300 align:middle line:84% it would be an indelible memory, not only the proposition, 00:02:25.300 --> 00:02:27.862 align:middle line:90% but the fragrant-- 00:02:27.862 --> 00:02:31.130 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:31.130 --> 00:02:31.630 align:middle line:90% 00:02:31.630 --> 00:02:34.630 align:middle line:84% --breezes wafting past your nose while you 00:02:34.630 --> 00:02:37.570 align:middle line:90% were affirming the question. 00:02:37.570 --> 00:02:43.650 align:middle line:90% 00:02:43.650 --> 00:02:44.670 align:middle line:90% This was another one. 00:02:44.670 --> 00:02:47.010 align:middle line:84% And doing the research, I was really always 00:02:47.010 --> 00:02:51.210 align:middle line:84% delighted to find, for instance, that the poet that I had chosen 00:02:51.210 --> 00:02:53.820 align:middle line:84% had really done the serious work in service 00:02:53.820 --> 00:02:54.910 align:middle line:90% to the natural world. 00:02:54.910 --> 00:02:58.830 align:middle line:84% And so this was one that I chose the poem 00:02:58.830 --> 00:03:00.480 align:middle line:90% and then started reading back. 00:03:00.480 --> 00:03:04.665 align:middle line:84% And we choose hundreds if not thousands of poems. 00:03:04.665 --> 00:03:07.680 align:middle line:90% 00:03:07.680 --> 00:03:10.150 align:middle line:84% And so then you come down to final decisions. 00:03:10.150 --> 00:03:12.960 align:middle line:84% And when I read about his life, I knew that he had to be in. 00:03:12.960 --> 00:03:16.320 align:middle line:90% This is Birago Diop. 00:03:16.320 --> 00:03:20.820 align:middle line:84% He was a poet from Senegal, ambassador to Tunisia, 00:03:20.820 --> 00:03:23.820 align:middle line:84% and he translated the tales of the Wolof people. 00:03:23.820 --> 00:03:25.770 align:middle line:90% He was also a veterinarian. 00:03:25.770 --> 00:03:27.780 align:middle line:84% And when he gave up his public service, 00:03:27.780 --> 00:03:29.820 align:middle line:84% he went back to Senegal and built 00:03:29.820 --> 00:03:34.410 align:middle line:90% an enormous veterinary hospital. 00:03:34.410 --> 00:03:38.520 align:middle line:84% "Listen more often to things than to beings. 00:03:38.520 --> 00:03:40.110 align:middle line:90% Hear the fire's voice. 00:03:40.110 --> 00:03:41.550 align:middle line:90% Hear the voice of water. 00:03:41.550 --> 00:03:45.210 align:middle line:84% Hear in the wind the sobbing of the trees. 00:03:45.210 --> 00:03:47.610 align:middle line:84% It is the breath of the ancestors." 00:03:47.610 --> 00:03:51.660 align:middle line:90% 00:03:51.660 --> 00:03:56.640 align:middle line:84% And here-- for the most part, Central Park, the zoo there, 00:03:56.640 --> 00:03:58.110 align:middle line:90% is a diminutive zoo. 00:03:58.110 --> 00:04:00.000 align:middle line:90% It's six acres. 00:04:00.000 --> 00:04:01.590 align:middle line:90% It's a jewel box zoo. 00:04:01.590 --> 00:04:06.960 align:middle line:84% The animals are all diminutive, except for the polar bears 00:04:06.960 --> 00:04:10.230 align:middle line:90% and the sea lions-- 00:04:10.230 --> 00:04:10.730 align:middle line:90% seals. 00:04:10.730 --> 00:04:13.580 align:middle line:90% 00:04:13.580 --> 00:04:16.320 align:middle line:84% So this is around the polar bear enclosure. 00:04:16.320 --> 00:04:20.870 align:middle line:84% This is Edward Field's transcription from Rasmussen's 00:04:20.870 --> 00:04:24.830 align:middle line:90% journals, "Magic Words." 00:04:24.830 --> 00:04:27.710 align:middle line:84% "In the very earliest time, when both people and animals lived 00:04:27.710 --> 00:04:30.560 align:middle line:84% on Earth, a person could become an animal if he wanted to, 00:04:30.560 --> 00:04:32.450 align:middle line:84% and an animal could become a human being. 00:04:32.450 --> 00:04:35.390 align:middle line:84% Sometimes they were people and sometimes animals 00:04:35.390 --> 00:04:37.280 align:middle line:90% and there was no difference. 00:04:37.280 --> 00:04:39.170 align:middle line:90% All spoke the same language. 00:04:39.170 --> 00:04:41.540 align:middle line:84% That was the time when words were like magic. 00:04:41.540 --> 00:04:44.180 align:middle line:84% The human mind had mysterious powers. 00:04:44.180 --> 00:04:47.690 align:middle line:84% A word spoken by chance might have strange consequences. 00:04:47.690 --> 00:04:51.080 align:middle line:84% It would suddenly come alive and what people wanted to happen 00:04:51.080 --> 00:04:52.400 align:middle line:90% could happen. 00:04:52.400 --> 00:04:54.660 align:middle line:90% All you had to do was say it. 00:04:54.660 --> 00:04:56.300 align:middle line:90% Nobody could explain this. 00:04:56.300 --> 00:04:57.815 align:middle line:90% That's just the way it was." 00:04:57.815 --> 00:05:01.770 align:middle line:90% 00:05:01.770 --> 00:05:04.970 align:middle line:84% And around that same enclosure, there's 00:05:04.970 --> 00:05:06.860 align:middle line:90% a poet in Maine, Gary Lawless. 00:05:06.860 --> 00:05:08.090 align:middle line:90% He runs a bookstore. 00:05:08.090 --> 00:05:11.900 align:middle line:84% And he looks like someone who's just come out of the woods. 00:05:11.900 --> 00:05:14.690 align:middle line:90% He has long hair, long beard. 00:05:14.690 --> 00:05:17.900 align:middle line:84% And he came down from Maine to read in New York, 00:05:17.900 --> 00:05:19.790 align:middle line:90% and he was so delighted. 00:05:19.790 --> 00:05:22.310 align:middle line:84% What's great is for the poets to come and see 00:05:22.310 --> 00:05:26.720 align:middle line:84% their work up in the installation with the animal. 00:05:26.720 --> 00:05:28.520 align:middle line:90% So this is Gary Lawless. 00:05:28.520 --> 00:05:31.580 align:middle line:84% And one of the things that I've discovered that I really 00:05:31.580 --> 00:05:32.990 align:middle line:84% like about public installation is 00:05:32.990 --> 00:05:35.480 align:middle line:84% to do these walking installations that can 00:05:35.480 --> 00:05:39.320 align:middle line:90% be read backward and forward. 00:05:39.320 --> 00:05:41.660 align:middle line:84% "Treat each bear as the last bear. 00:05:41.660 --> 00:05:43.910 align:middle line:84% Each wolf as the last, each caribou. 00:05:43.910 --> 00:05:45.710 align:middle line:90% Each track as the last track. 00:05:45.710 --> 00:05:47.660 align:middle line:90% Gone spoor, gone scat. 00:05:47.660 --> 00:05:50.060 align:middle line:84% There are no more deertrails, no more flyways. 00:05:50.060 --> 00:05:52.910 align:middle line:84% Treat each animal as sacred, each minute our last. 00:05:52.910 --> 00:05:54.020 align:middle line:90% Ghost hooves. 00:05:54.020 --> 00:05:55.010 align:middle line:90% Ghost skulls. 00:05:55.010 --> 00:05:56.930 align:middle line:90% Death rattles and dry bones. 00:05:56.930 --> 00:06:01.660 align:middle line:84% Each bear walking alone in warm night air."