WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:12.115 align:middle line:90% 00:00:12.115 --> 00:00:12.740 align:middle line:90% [CLEARS THROAT] 00:00:12.740 --> 00:00:13.250 align:middle line:90% Excuse me. 00:00:13.250 --> 00:00:17.870 align:middle line:84% I have a little poem about [INAUDIBLE].. 00:00:17.870 --> 00:00:20.660 align:middle line:84% How about I have what the children have-- 00:00:20.660 --> 00:00:25.580 align:middle line:84% some children have-- something they did, 00:00:25.580 --> 00:00:28.220 align:middle line:84% or I think some of them still do, in the summertime. 00:00:28.220 --> 00:00:30.450 align:middle line:90% It's called "The Lanyard." 00:00:30.450 --> 00:00:32.210 align:middle line:90% "The Lanyard." 00:00:32.210 --> 00:00:33.860 align:middle line:84% And I tried in this poem, I tried 00:00:33.860 --> 00:00:35.920 align:middle line:84% to do what I do in several poems. 00:00:35.920 --> 00:00:39.420 align:middle line:84% And so, as a kind of reader courtesy, 00:00:39.420 --> 00:00:44.780 align:middle line:84% I think, one reason that many poems are deflective 00:00:44.780 --> 00:00:47.810 align:middle line:84% of entry, as one of my friends said, 00:00:47.810 --> 00:00:50.810 align:middle line:84% is that so much has gone on in the poet's mind, 00:00:50.810 --> 00:00:56.540 align:middle line:84% from the first seeds of the poem to its composition 00:00:56.540 --> 00:00:59.600 align:middle line:84% and through various drafts and revisions that-- 00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:02.220 align:middle line:84% and the reader is really not in on any of that. 00:01:02.220 --> 00:01:03.920 align:middle line:84% And so some of these poems, I try 00:01:03.920 --> 00:01:09.650 align:middle line:84% to back up the poem's story with the very inkling of the poem 00:01:09.650 --> 00:01:12.590 align:middle line:84% and then move forward, so I don't get too far 00:01:12.590 --> 00:01:14.930 align:middle line:90% ahead of the reader. 00:01:14.930 --> 00:01:16.820 align:middle line:90% Just a little [INAUDIBLE]. 00:01:16.820 --> 00:01:19.040 align:middle line:90% "The Lanyard." 00:01:19.040 --> 00:01:21.650 align:middle line:84% "The other day I was richocheting slowly 00:01:21.650 --> 00:01:24.260 align:middle line:84% off the pale blue walls of this room, 00:01:24.260 --> 00:01:27.740 align:middle line:84% bouncing from typewriter to piano, from bookshelf 00:01:27.740 --> 00:01:30.200 align:middle line:84% to an envelope lying on the floor, 00:01:30.200 --> 00:01:33.800 align:middle line:84% I found myself in the L section of the dictionary 00:01:33.800 --> 00:01:37.670 align:middle line:84% where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard. 00:01:37.670 --> 00:01:40.550 align:middle line:84% No cookie nibbled by a French novelist 00:01:40.550 --> 00:01:44.120 align:middle line:84% could send one more suddenly into the past, a past where 00:01:44.120 --> 00:01:47.660 align:middle line:84% I sat at a workbench at a camp by a deep Adirondack 00:01:47.660 --> 00:01:52.970 align:middle line:84% lake learning how to braid thin plastic strips into a lanyard, 00:01:52.970 --> 00:01:55.490 align:middle line:90% a gift for my mother. 00:01:55.490 --> 00:01:59.030 align:middle line:84% I had never seen anyone use a lanyard or wear one, 00:01:59.030 --> 00:02:01.010 align:middle line:84% if that's what you did with them, 00:02:01.010 --> 00:02:04.550 align:middle line:84% but that did not keep me from crossing strand over strand 00:02:04.550 --> 00:02:09.500 align:middle line:84% again and again until I had made a boxy red and white lanyard 00:02:09.500 --> 00:02:11.210 align:middle line:90% for my mother. 00:02:11.210 --> 00:02:14.780 align:middle line:84% She gave me a life and milk from her breasts 00:02:14.780 --> 00:02:16.270 align:middle line:90% and I gave her a lanyard. 00:02:16.270 --> 00:02:18.850 align:middle line:90% 00:02:18.850 --> 00:02:21.410 align:middle line:84% She nursed me in many a sick room, 00:02:21.410 --> 00:02:24.380 align:middle line:84% lifted teaspoons of medicine to my lips, 00:02:24.380 --> 00:02:27.260 align:middle line:84% set cold face-cloths on my forehead, 00:02:27.260 --> 00:02:29.810 align:middle line:84% and then led me out into the airy light 00:02:29.810 --> 00:02:33.590 align:middle line:84% and taught me to walk and swim, and I, in turn, 00:02:33.590 --> 00:02:37.410 align:middle line:90% presented her with a lanyard. 00:02:37.410 --> 00:02:40.410 align:middle line:84% Here are thousands of meals, she said, and here 00:02:40.410 --> 00:02:43.590 align:middle line:84% is clothing and a good education. 00:02:43.590 --> 00:02:46.905 align:middle line:84% And here is your lanyard, I replied 00:02:46.905 --> 00:02:51.690 align:middle line:84% which I made with a little help from my counselor. 00:02:51.690 --> 00:02:54.810 align:middle line:84% Here is a breathing body and a beating heart, 00:02:54.810 --> 00:02:58.320 align:middle line:84% strong legs, bones and teeth, and two clear eyes 00:02:58.320 --> 00:03:00.590 align:middle line:84% to read the world, she whispered, 00:03:00.590 --> 00:03:04.530 align:middle line:84% and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp. 00:03:04.530 --> 00:03:06.900 align:middle line:84% And here, I wish to say to her now, 00:03:06.900 --> 00:03:10.560 align:middle line:84% is a smaller gift, not the archaic truth 00:03:10.560 --> 00:03:13.140 align:middle line:84% that you can never repay your mother, 00:03:13.140 --> 00:03:15.570 align:middle line:84% but the rueful admission that when 00:03:15.570 --> 00:03:19.300 align:middle line:84% she took the two-tone lanyard from my hand, 00:03:19.300 --> 00:03:24.210 align:middle line:84% I was as sure as a boy could be that this useless, worthless 00:03:24.210 --> 00:03:26.880 align:middle line:84% thing I wove out of boredom would 00:03:26.880 --> 00:03:28.620 align:middle line:90% be enough to make us even." 00:03:28.620 --> 00:03:31.370 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:03:31.370 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