WEBVTT

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This, as you probably
have guessed by this time,

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the case of that and the
letters from my father

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are the beginning of a little
thematic group about time

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and what it takes away
and what it can take away

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as well as what it can bring.

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But I noticed after I'd
written a few books of poetry

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that I was writing about
this thing a great deal.

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And as I wrote, I
discovered in my poetry

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the very simple idea that
against what time takes away,

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there are two great
forces, which are

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embattled against this loss.

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And those are love
and art, which

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are the holders and keepers,
which hang on and keep things

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still against the times
pull of taking it away.

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And I wrote a lot
of poems about this

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but I'm just going to read one.

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It occurred to me just
as an idea for a poem

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because otherwise who cares,
they're both very great powers.

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As an idea for a poem I
thought I might write about,

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which is the greater power
against time love or art.

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And one would think just
from the heart that love was,

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naturally.

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But love has to
cope with mortality,

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and after all the people in the
world who've loved who've ever

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loved you are gone love
cannot do very much for you.

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On the other hand, if
art is great enough,

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it can hold things century
after century after century.

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Yet that isn't so simple
either, because if it weren't

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for the mixture of love and the
aesthetic experience with which

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we look at great art, art
wouldn't have much holding

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power either because
nobody would look at it.

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And it would be helpless too.

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So it seemed to me a
kind of complex question.

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So I wrote this poem and I
used the figure of King Midas

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as the artist, the
holder and keeper figure.

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You all know this,
I'll just remind you

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that Midas did a
favor for Dionysus.

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And in return he got his wish.

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And his wish was that everything
he touched would turn to gold.

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And in some of the myths
the first problem Midas had

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was that he couldn't eat.

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And in the poem I just left out.

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So he had to go to Dionysus and
say please take my gift away

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and let me live, I have to eat.

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But I ignored this
problem in my poem.

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He just goes on eating
year after year somehow

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I don't know how.

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I gave him a wife and
I made her a gardener

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who deals with growing
changing things.

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"Midas and wife."

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He loved the way her fingers
loved the ground, a peasant

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touch that padded things green.

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And would tent to petition for
the rain that made their garden

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move, and reach freely
for bugs the burrowed

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or birds that flew away.

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She loved his gift for
making that fairness stay.

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But lest she stay he
couldn't touch the queen.

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And whose cold image
creation would be and then?

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He feared his fingers
and their golden gain,

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but followed her from room to
room to touch what she touched.

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She arranged a trembling bloom.

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He touched the flower
fell into its form.

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The dog quivered and
smiled at her attention.

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But felt his brilliant
answer and soon

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froze forever in a witty grin.

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The years went by and
all she carried inside

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to feel his
sovereignty acquiesced

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and died into perfection,
and into the eternal married

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except herself.

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The heart of Midas grew
cold from his abstention.

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The queen group old
and the whole palace

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filled with scions of gold.

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She spoke then, look
at my face Midas.

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My shame shouts to you there
of my long affair with time

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while I yearn for the King
whose art would keep me home.

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I reach for you through the
world and you never come.

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You reach for what I touch not
what I am, and down between us

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falls your golden theme.

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Besides I have grown so
fond of the rich and still.

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Though all outdoors rage with
the green and fruitful I cannot

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bear my own composure
until you hold me.

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Changing under your touch I'll
prove whatever holds perfectly

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is stronger than love,
but subject still

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to love's heartless imperative.

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Never on Earth my
dear can you and I

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discover a golden mediocrity.

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The sovereign gift
must find a way

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to comply when Midas moved
in loneliness and pain

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to touch her hand.

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Her hand turned numb.

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Her heart turned quietly
into a pair of dim.

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And she took her final
form in idolatry.

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Blinding and blind to him her
son like I but her brazen lips

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could move him anyway.

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And Dionysus smiling
set him free.

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