WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.206 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.206 --> 00:00:01.664 align:middle line:84% There's something a little happier. 00:00:01.664 --> 00:00:06.400 align:middle line:90% 00:00:06.400 --> 00:00:08.260 align:middle line:84% This is not really a poem about the dawn. 00:00:08.260 --> 00:00:12.250 align:middle line:84% But it does concern a light-- in this case, yeah, 00:00:12.250 --> 00:00:14.110 align:middle line:90% I think a flashlight. 00:00:14.110 --> 00:00:17.230 align:middle line:84% Light has always fascinated me, whether in paintings, 00:00:17.230 --> 00:00:20.590 align:middle line:84% especially out here where the light is so intense. 00:00:20.590 --> 00:00:24.400 align:middle line:84% But this actually is almost a found poem. 00:00:24.400 --> 00:00:26.770 align:middle line:90% It's from a reminiscence. 00:00:26.770 --> 00:00:29.470 align:middle line:84% I can't recall from what conservation magazine, 00:00:29.470 --> 00:00:31.990 align:middle line:84% but one of the recent ones had a story 00:00:31.990 --> 00:00:33.850 align:middle line:84% about a man who was studying bears 00:00:33.850 --> 00:00:36.820 align:middle line:84% and was living in the woods up in Canada. 00:00:36.820 --> 00:00:39.610 align:middle line:84% And the incident in here, although I 00:00:39.610 --> 00:00:43.990 align:middle line:84% added just a little bit to it, is basically the structure 00:00:43.990 --> 00:00:45.680 align:middle line:84% that he used in his little essay. 00:00:45.680 --> 00:00:47.680 align:middle line:84% He was walking in the woods, found a dead moose, 00:00:47.680 --> 00:00:49.180 align:middle line:84% and said, a-ha, there will be a bear 00:00:49.180 --> 00:00:51.490 align:middle line:84% by here eating the moose tonight. 00:00:51.490 --> 00:00:52.360 align:middle line:90% And so he got-- 00:00:52.360 --> 00:00:54.640 align:middle line:84% went, ran home, got his flashlight and his thermos 00:00:54.640 --> 00:00:57.670 align:middle line:84% of coffee, and came back and sat up in the tree 00:00:57.670 --> 00:01:00.820 align:middle line:84% to see the bear come in after the sunset. 00:01:00.820 --> 00:01:08.485 align:middle line:90% 00:01:08.485 --> 00:01:09.860 align:middle line:84% There's also a reference in here. 00:01:09.860 --> 00:01:10.943 align:middle line:90% Maybe some of you know it. 00:01:10.943 --> 00:01:14.140 align:middle line:84% Afterwards, perhaps you can enlighten me specifically. 00:01:14.140 --> 00:01:18.130 align:middle line:90% I remember about 1959 or so-- 00:01:18.130 --> 00:01:20.110 align:middle line:84% somewhere in there-- seeing a Mexican movie. 00:01:20.110 --> 00:01:23.920 align:middle line:84% There's a famous Mexican movie star, or star-ess, in it. 00:01:23.920 --> 00:01:25.615 align:middle line:84% And it was down at the Fox Theater. 00:01:25.615 --> 00:01:28.210 align:middle line:84% Ah, you're all too young to remember the Fox. 00:01:28.210 --> 00:01:31.960 align:middle line:84% And it was very dramatic, as most Mexican movies are. 00:01:31.960 --> 00:01:33.910 align:middle line:90% And she had a broken heart. 00:01:33.910 --> 00:01:35.410 align:middle line:84% And she committed suicide at the end 00:01:35.410 --> 00:01:38.650 align:middle line:90% by walking out into the ocean. 00:01:38.650 --> 00:01:41.350 align:middle line:84% And the surreal thing about it to me 00:01:41.350 --> 00:01:43.570 align:middle line:84% is that as she walked out into the ocean, 00:01:43.570 --> 00:01:47.380 align:middle line:84% her breasts sort of floated ahead of her. 00:01:47.380 --> 00:01:48.970 align:middle line:90% And that image never left me. 00:01:48.970 --> 00:01:50.290 align:middle line:90% Nobody knows who she is? 00:01:50.290 --> 00:01:59.480 align:middle line:90% 00:01:59.480 --> 00:02:02.270 align:middle line:84% So, of course, this one is called "Suitcases." 00:02:02.270 --> 00:02:10.790 align:middle line:90% 00:02:10.790 --> 00:02:14.180 align:middle line:90% "It was my first July in Canada. 00:02:14.180 --> 00:02:20.750 align:middle line:84% And I found a moose, excuse for reason, putrefying at my feet. 00:02:20.750 --> 00:02:22.670 align:middle line:84% Later, as I sat up in a jack pine 00:02:22.670 --> 00:02:25.940 align:middle line:84% with my field glasses, sandwiches, and a vacuum 00:02:25.940 --> 00:02:30.260 align:middle line:84% flask of coffee, while the mosquitoes snacked on me, 00:02:30.260 --> 00:02:32.240 align:middle line:84% I watched the sun leaving in its wake 00:02:32.240 --> 00:02:35.420 align:middle line:90% a great fire on the horizon. 00:02:35.420 --> 00:02:37.760 align:middle line:90% What was going on over there? 00:02:37.760 --> 00:02:40.460 align:middle line:84% Was that the other land, the London fire where 00:02:40.460 --> 00:02:42.860 align:middle line:84% the merchants ran out in their shirtsleeves, 00:02:42.860 --> 00:02:46.010 align:middle line:84% bug-eyed at the devastation of families, 00:02:46.010 --> 00:02:49.040 align:middle line:90% of irreplaceable libraries? 00:02:49.040 --> 00:02:51.110 align:middle line:84% Or was that place simply California, 00:02:51.110 --> 00:02:53.300 align:middle line:84% where the sun, having left me, was now 00:02:53.300 --> 00:02:56.690 align:middle line:84% leaving, where California girls, pouting, 00:02:56.690 --> 00:02:58.940 align:middle line:84% indolent on the sand all day, now 00:02:58.940 --> 00:03:03.020 align:middle line:84% rose in their striped swimsuits, sphinxes rising excitedly 00:03:03.020 --> 00:03:05.210 align:middle line:84% from the beach, waving their white rubber 00:03:05.210 --> 00:03:07.130 align:middle line:84% arms as they came alive, wading in 00:03:07.130 --> 00:03:11.270 align:middle line:84% after it, as I saw a famous movie star do once, 00:03:11.270 --> 00:03:14.870 align:middle line:84% crazed with her vision, striding out behind her floating breasts 00:03:14.870 --> 00:03:17.360 align:middle line:90% in a Mexican movie? 00:03:17.360 --> 00:03:19.010 align:middle line:90% No matter. 00:03:19.010 --> 00:03:22.040 align:middle line:84% Here, I heard a crashing in the bushes. 00:03:22.040 --> 00:03:24.440 align:middle line:84% Grinning from ear to ear, that wild woman 00:03:24.440 --> 00:03:28.580 align:middle line:84% in the myth coming toward me, dream of stranded geologists, 00:03:28.580 --> 00:03:34.400 align:middle line:84% saw her bend, eat with great snuffling and smacking. 00:03:34.400 --> 00:03:38.630 align:middle line:84% An hour later, saw her better, sitting back against the tree, 00:03:38.630 --> 00:03:42.770 align:middle line:84% legs spread out, asleep in the moon of my flashlight. 00:03:42.770 --> 00:03:45.670 align:middle line:90% Her mouth, a suitcase." 00:03:45.670 --> 00:03:49.000 align:middle line:90%