WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.140 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.140 --> 00:00:02.910 align:middle line:84% I'm glad too that the [INAUDIBLE] stopped, 00:00:02.910 --> 00:00:04.690 align:middle line:84% but I'm not going to go too long. 00:00:04.690 --> 00:00:08.895 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read a poem that's called "Lucy". 00:00:08.895 --> 00:00:11.670 align:middle line:90% 00:00:11.670 --> 00:00:13.500 align:middle line:84% And I want to thank Catherine again 00:00:13.500 --> 00:00:16.520 align:middle line:84% for helping to think of what to read tonight 00:00:16.520 --> 00:00:22.920 align:middle line:84% and just for general companionship on this trip. 00:00:22.920 --> 00:00:27.200 align:middle line:90% Lucy, I'd like to tell you is-- 00:00:27.200 --> 00:00:29.050 align:middle line:90% some of you may know this-- 00:00:29.050 --> 00:00:31.670 align:middle line:90% she's a skeleton from Ethiopia. 00:00:31.670 --> 00:00:32.630 align:middle line:90% You know about her? 00:00:32.630 --> 00:00:33.740 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:00:33.740 --> 00:00:36.200 align:middle line:84% Well, I didn't, but I heard about her. 00:00:36.200 --> 00:00:37.850 align:middle line:84% But then I read something about her, 00:00:37.850 --> 00:00:43.010 align:middle line:84% so let me read it just in case you didn't hear about it. 00:00:43.010 --> 00:00:48.110 align:middle line:84% Her skeleton is approximately 3.2 million years old, 00:00:48.110 --> 00:00:52.940 align:middle line:84% whose genus and species are Australopithecus afarensis, 00:00:52.940 --> 00:00:57.980 align:middle line:84% or southern ape of afar after the region of Ethiopia 00:00:57.980 --> 00:01:00.260 align:middle line:90% where the bones were found. 00:01:00.260 --> 00:01:07.100 align:middle line:84% She was discovered in 1974 in Hagar in northern Ethiopia. 00:01:07.100 --> 00:01:09.830 align:middle line:84% Lucy remains the oldest and most complete 00:01:09.830 --> 00:01:14.720 align:middle line:84% adult human ancestor fully retrieved from Africa soil. 00:01:14.720 --> 00:01:20.060 align:middle line:84% The Ethiopian people refer to her as Dinkenesh, 00:01:20.060 --> 00:01:25.010 align:middle line:84% an Amharic language term meaning you are beautiful. 00:01:25.010 --> 00:01:29.700 align:middle line:90% 00:01:29.700 --> 00:01:34.580 align:middle line:84% In this poem, which is 15 poems one after another. 00:01:34.580 --> 00:01:37.910 align:middle line:90% 00:01:37.910 --> 00:01:40.550 align:middle line:84% I'll tell you the things I'm referring to ahead of time, 00:01:40.550 --> 00:01:42.140 align:middle line:90% so I won't stop. 00:01:42.140 --> 00:01:43.460 align:middle line:90% There's a song. 00:01:43.460 --> 00:01:47.900 align:middle line:84% There's a quotation from William Carlos Williams, "My saxifrage 00:01:47.900 --> 00:01:50.390 align:middle line:90% that splits the rocks." 00:01:50.390 --> 00:01:52.880 align:middle line:84% There's a reference to 9/11 when I 00:01:52.880 --> 00:01:55.700 align:middle line:84% talk about bodies falling from the towers 00:01:55.700 --> 00:01:59.270 align:middle line:84% or friends of mine who died last summer: 00:01:59.270 --> 00:02:03.071 align:middle line:90% Ruth, Grace, Helen Ruth, Jane. 00:02:03.071 --> 00:02:05.210 align:middle line:90% They're mentioned. 00:02:05.210 --> 00:02:08.000 align:middle line:84% Nicolay, who I refer to is a monk 00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:12.110 align:middle line:84% who has just died in Chekhov's story Easter Eve, 00:02:12.110 --> 00:02:16.760 align:middle line:84% and Ieronim, in the story, a friend of his, 00:02:16.760 --> 00:02:21.350 align:middle line:84% is when a lame monk who works the ferry across the river 00:02:21.350 --> 00:02:25.100 align:middle line:90% to the monastery in the story. 00:02:25.100 --> 00:02:28.340 align:middle line:84% There are wild turkeys and deer in the poem. 00:02:28.340 --> 00:02:31.220 align:middle line:84% I was in the country when I wrote it, and there were. 00:02:31.220 --> 00:02:33.730 align:middle line:90% Everything happened to me. 00:02:33.730 --> 00:02:35.900 align:middle line:84% Rilke lines from the "Book of Hours" 00:02:35.900 --> 00:02:38.910 align:middle line:84% were written on the wall of the room I was in. 00:02:38.910 --> 00:02:42.540 align:middle line:84% Lucy's picture is a reconstruction 00:02:42.540 --> 00:02:46.280 align:middle line:84% that I saw from her skeleton of what she may have looked like. 00:02:46.280 --> 00:02:48.490 align:middle line:90% You know how museums do that? 00:02:48.490 --> 00:02:49.450 align:middle line:90% So that's it, I think. 00:02:49.450 --> 00:02:54.150 align:middle line:84% Oh, and Martín Ramírez, who was a Mexican immigrant painter. 00:02:54.150 --> 00:02:56.460 align:middle line:90% You may know about him. 00:02:56.460 --> 00:02:59.160 align:middle line:84% He lived for more than 30 years in DeWitt State 00:02:59.160 --> 00:03:05.510 align:middle line:84% Hospital in California until his death in 1963. 00:03:05.510 --> 00:03:08.360 align:middle line:84% His work was shown at the American Folk Art Museum 00:03:08.360 --> 00:03:13.170 align:middle line:84% in New York City in the spring of 2007 where I saw it. 00:03:13.170 --> 00:03:16.295 align:middle line:84% There was going to be another show in about two weeks. 00:03:16.295 --> 00:03:18.860 align:middle line:90% 00:03:18.860 --> 00:03:23.330 align:middle line:84% Half his lifetime of work was in the doctor's garage, a doctor 00:03:23.330 --> 00:03:25.320 align:middle line:90% who treated him for years. 00:03:25.320 --> 00:03:26.510 align:middle line:90% He used to bring them home. 00:03:26.510 --> 00:03:31.040 align:middle line:84% He would do his art on paper bags or things like that. 00:03:31.040 --> 00:03:35.740 align:middle line:90% 00:03:35.740 --> 00:03:40.460 align:middle line:84% The doctor would bring him pencils, colored pencils. 00:03:40.460 --> 00:03:44.665 align:middle line:84% His art is wonderful if you get the chance to see it. 00:03:44.665 --> 00:03:47.000 align:middle line:90%