WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.610 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.610 --> 00:00:04.315 align:middle line:84% And I want to read one for her that I wrote. 00:00:04.315 --> 00:00:07.310 align:middle line:84% I wrote about a poem a month, her whole life. 00:00:07.310 --> 00:00:10.720 align:middle line:84% And this is the eighth month, when she's eight months old. 00:00:10.720 --> 00:00:13.720 align:middle line:84% "Eighth Month Couplets: Another Letter 00:00:13.720 --> 00:00:16.500 align:middle line:90% from the Wondrous Field." 00:00:16.500 --> 00:00:19.080 align:middle line:84% "So that you may remember pre-language events 00:00:19.080 --> 00:00:22.530 align:middle line:84% and not bump your head as you crawl across the alphabet, 00:00:22.530 --> 00:00:25.380 align:middle line:84% you've had plenty of adventures already, to be sure. 00:00:25.380 --> 00:00:28.680 align:middle line:84% All of culture lies before you to be unglued. 00:00:28.680 --> 00:00:31.530 align:middle line:84% You can dance in a roundel in your romantic phase 00:00:31.530 --> 00:00:34.770 align:middle line:84% amongst hostas and hearty begonias bedecked 00:00:34.770 --> 00:00:37.950 align:middle line:84% without irony, and then throw it all over for Apollo. 00:00:37.950 --> 00:00:40.110 align:middle line:84% Then again, subvert the third term 00:00:40.110 --> 00:00:43.320 align:middle line:84% beneath the Dionysian tread of trees. 00:00:43.320 --> 00:00:45.900 align:middle line:84% When I was pregnant, I had a vision of lying back 00:00:45.900 --> 00:00:49.380 align:middle line:84% into the lap of the Earth supporting me from below as I 00:00:49.380 --> 00:00:53.040 align:middle line:84% was holding you on a conch couch at my sweet shrink's. 00:00:53.040 --> 00:00:55.350 align:middle line:84% The other day, I envisioned a huge breast 00:00:55.350 --> 00:00:56.550 align:middle line:90% I suck on from above. 00:00:56.550 --> 00:00:58.410 align:middle line:90% As you did just a moment ago. 00:00:58.410 --> 00:01:00.630 align:middle line:84% I let you down on the floor so's I can write 00:01:00.630 --> 00:01:02.670 align:middle line:90% this line on the ThinkPad. 00:01:02.670 --> 00:01:05.670 align:middle line:84% You are reaching up to touch the table matrix. 00:01:05.670 --> 00:01:09.300 align:middle line:84% You have never tasted African slush punch from Vicksburg 00:01:09.300 --> 00:01:12.660 align:middle line:84% or seen a folk art cat bird feeder inscribed with free bird 00:01:12.660 --> 00:01:13.800 align:middle line:90% seed. 00:01:13.800 --> 00:01:15.990 align:middle line:84% I write today from the Springs Amagansett 00:01:15.990 --> 00:01:18.510 align:middle line:84% where we swam in an L-shaped pool at Carol's place 00:01:18.510 --> 00:01:20.880 align:middle line:90% and ate striped bass fish tacos. 00:01:20.880 --> 00:01:23.010 align:middle line:84% But you ate strained green beans and bananas, 00:01:23.010 --> 00:01:26.130 align:middle line:84% and are playing with Laura and shells on the white carpet. 00:01:26.130 --> 00:01:28.950 align:middle line:84% You are dressed all in white, as I am. 00:01:28.950 --> 00:01:30.990 align:middle line:84% 'It's going to be hot today,' she says. 00:01:30.990 --> 00:01:33.060 align:middle line:84% You are a superstar because you're crawling now 00:01:33.060 --> 00:01:34.560 align:middle line:84% with two hands planted before you 00:01:34.560 --> 00:01:37.740 align:middle line:84% and pull your body forward, undulating like a worm. 00:01:37.740 --> 00:01:39.270 align:middle line:90% Make your backbone shake. 00:01:39.270 --> 00:01:42.380 align:middle line:84% You are a Brown Torn girl in the ring, tra-la-la-la-la, 00:01:42.380 --> 00:01:45.630 align:middle line:84% and you look like a sugar and a plum, plum, plum. 00:01:45.630 --> 00:01:49.710 align:middle line:84% A red and green hose like a snake spiraling in the sun. 00:01:49.710 --> 00:01:53.520 align:middle line:84% A globe sun, black, spins, as he lied and upped the date 00:01:53.520 --> 00:01:54.960 align:middle line:90% of his death, Jackson Pollock. 00:01:54.960 --> 00:01:56.520 align:middle line:90% I am a permeable membrane. 00:01:56.520 --> 00:01:59.190 align:middle line:84% I think more or mortality and immortality, 00:01:59.190 --> 00:02:00.990 align:middle line:84% as when in labor on December 7th, 00:02:00.990 --> 00:02:03.180 align:middle line:84% and it was surely to be your birthday on the 8th. 00:02:03.180 --> 00:02:04.170 align:middle line:90% It was determined. 00:02:04.170 --> 00:02:05.820 align:middle line:90% So I said, 'The eighth. 00:02:05.820 --> 00:02:07.290 align:middle line:90% That means infinity.' 00:02:07.290 --> 00:02:09.360 align:middle line:84% My mother was impressed with my articulation 00:02:09.360 --> 00:02:11.027 align:middle line:84% and that I could speak at all, much less 00:02:11.027 --> 00:02:13.740 align:middle line:84% make poetic conceptualizations about your birthday. 00:02:13.740 --> 00:02:16.650 align:middle line:84% In fact, I was obsessing on what it would be in the big birthday 00:02:16.650 --> 00:02:17.250 align:middle line:90% book. 00:02:17.250 --> 00:02:19.260 align:middle line:84% You almost made the day of eccentricity 00:02:19.260 --> 00:02:21.570 align:middle line:84% along with Emily D., but you passed that over 00:02:21.570 --> 00:02:24.510 align:middle line:84% for the day of abandon, total freedom. 00:02:24.510 --> 00:02:27.450 align:middle line:84% Same birthday as Sinead O'Connor; Mary, Queen of Scots; 00:02:27.450 --> 00:02:30.787 align:middle line:84% Jim Morrison; Flip Wilson; alter-ego Geraldine, 00:02:30.787 --> 00:02:32.370 align:middle line:84% whom your grandmother of the same name 00:02:32.370 --> 00:02:35.490 align:middle line:84% was purported to have loved; and others of wild nature, 00:02:35.490 --> 00:02:37.590 align:middle line:90% unable to be contained. 00:02:37.590 --> 00:02:39.450 align:middle line:84% You were also born in the year of the horse. 00:02:39.450 --> 00:02:42.790 align:middle line:84% And as a Sagittarius, you are a double horsey, ready to run 00:02:42.790 --> 00:02:43.920 align:middle line:90% and travel free. 00:02:43.920 --> 00:02:45.480 align:middle line:84% But I hope you'll stick close by me 00:02:45.480 --> 00:02:47.340 align:middle line:84% for quite a while, because I love it. 00:02:47.340 --> 00:02:50.100 align:middle line:84% And even though last month you supposedly finally figured out 00:02:50.100 --> 00:02:52.380 align:middle line:84% we have separate bodies and identities, 00:02:52.380 --> 00:02:54.270 align:middle line:84% you were your own self from the beginning, 00:02:54.270 --> 00:02:57.060 align:middle line:84% a focused, discerning light, so calm for a baby. 00:02:57.060 --> 00:03:00.150 align:middle line:84% You did cry, though not as much as we hear. 00:03:00.150 --> 00:03:02.520 align:middle line:84% And you did not have any choler or colic, 00:03:02.520 --> 00:03:05.370 align:middle line:84% but are of an undeniably sweet disposition. 00:03:05.370 --> 00:03:08.100 align:middle line:84% Anyway, as I was saying, I love you close by me. 00:03:08.100 --> 00:03:11.590 align:middle line:84% And we were together in bed, you nursing in the crook of my arm. 00:03:11.590 --> 00:03:14.130 align:middle line:84% I can imagine you are still attached to me, 00:03:14.130 --> 00:03:15.450 align:middle line:90% as you were in the inside. 00:03:15.450 --> 00:03:19.050 align:middle line:84% And your fine, smooth body exceptionally fat, fair, 00:03:19.050 --> 00:03:23.100 align:middle line:84% and pure, is covered with a fine patina of sweat. 00:03:23.100 --> 00:03:25.590 align:middle line:84% It is like you're still swimming in me. 00:03:25.590 --> 00:03:28.380 align:middle line:84% One time when you were kicking up a storm so strong 00:03:28.380 --> 00:03:30.330 align:middle line:84% in Vienna, when I was walking one night 00:03:30.330 --> 00:03:32.010 align:middle line:84% to catch the tram to meet your father, 00:03:32.010 --> 00:03:33.780 align:middle line:84% you kicked such a complex rhythm that I 00:03:33.780 --> 00:03:37.230 align:middle line:84% had to stop walking in order to process the polyphony. 00:03:37.230 --> 00:03:39.820 align:middle line:84% I notice these couplet lines are growing longer and longer. 00:03:39.820 --> 00:03:41.340 align:middle line:84% It's because I have so much to say to you, 00:03:41.340 --> 00:03:42.798 align:middle line:84% and the headlong rush seems the way 00:03:42.798 --> 00:03:44.820 align:middle line:84% to go if I am to attempt to catch up 00:03:44.820 --> 00:03:46.950 align:middle line:84% on all the varied strands of thought and experience 00:03:46.950 --> 00:03:48.750 align:middle line:84% that have transpired since your birth, 00:03:48.750 --> 00:03:50.760 align:middle line:84% making everything richer and more layered. 00:03:50.760 --> 00:03:53.760 align:middle line:84% I even had the feeling yesterday that you'd always been here, 00:03:53.760 --> 00:03:56.100 align:middle line:84% even though you've only been outside a little 00:03:56.100 --> 00:03:57.990 align:middle line:90% over half a year. 00:03:57.990 --> 00:04:01.410 align:middle line:84% Maybe you're always there in eternity or infinity. 00:04:01.410 --> 00:04:03.960 align:middle line:84% You met Destiny on the street the other day. 00:04:03.960 --> 00:04:06.660 align:middle line:84% And I said, Destiny, meet Reality, 00:04:06.660 --> 00:04:08.580 align:middle line:90% and Reality, meet Destiny. 00:04:08.580 --> 00:04:10.710 align:middle line:84% And Destiny's mother laughed and told her friend 00:04:10.710 --> 00:04:12.630 align:middle line:84% how I looked around as she was calling out 00:04:12.630 --> 00:04:15.180 align:middle line:90% down 8th Avenue, 'Destiny. 00:04:15.180 --> 00:04:18.149 align:middle line:84% Destiny.' So many little happenings since you were born. 00:04:18.149 --> 00:04:21.310 align:middle line:84% And now that art and life even seem more enmeshed, 00:04:21.310 --> 00:04:25.020 align:middle line:84% I think I'll go take a swim with you in that L-shaped pool, 00:04:25.020 --> 00:04:27.120 align:middle line:84% with you and your bright pink swim diapers 00:04:27.120 --> 00:04:29.460 align:middle line:90% given to us, unused, by Stella. 00:04:29.460 --> 00:04:32.625 align:middle line:84% So many lovely hand-me-downs, and new things, too." 00:04:32.625 --> 00:04:35.370 align:middle line:90% 00:04:35.370 --> 00:04:38.960 align:middle line:84% So that's one of many of the baby poems.