WEBVTT

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Two more to go, here.

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The first is called "Song."

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It's also based on a painting.

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And, as it happens,
really, purely by chance,

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it's based on the same painting
that Charles Simic read a poem

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about two weeks ago.

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And if you were
there, that's fine.

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And if you weren't, I
don't want to tell you

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which one it was because
part of the pleasure

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is figuring out
which painting it is.

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And if you don't know
the painting, I'm sorry.

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[LAUGHTER]

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In the poem, various
characters get to speak in turn

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and, in a sense, announce
pretty much who they are.

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And the idea for that
came really from a class

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that I was taking a long
time ago with Kenneth Koch

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involving imitation
of older poetries.

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And we had been reading and
imitating the Miracle Plays,

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where the characters will come
forward one at a time and say,

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I am the Virgin Mary,
or I am the baby Jesus,

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or I am the father Joseph, and
then go about their business.

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And in this poem, the characters
do not all announce themselves

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immediately, but I think it's
rather clear who's speaking.

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I won't announce who it is but
simply pause between each one.

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There's one unidentified
or disembodied voice

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that speaks very
briefly toward the end.

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I do need to say, I
guess, that the poet gets

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the first word here.

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He speaks first but not,
in a sense, the last word.

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"Song."

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"Hello, lion.

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Hello, lady.

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Hello, kaftan.

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Hello, lute.

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Hello, white mountain,
sand, and jug.

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Hello, nine stars.

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Let's talk together a while.

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Oh, lion, why does
the tip of your tail

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jut up like a tulip
or the eternal flame?

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Oh, lady asleep on the
dune, why are you smiling?

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Like the Madonna lady, are
you dreaming of a child

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who is not beside you?

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Oh, dune, I am feeling troubled.

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Do you understand
why dark green waters

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lie restless and
spellbound behind you?

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This is not an oasis.

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Am I wrong to address
you this way, dune?

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Are you a dune?

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Oh mountain, you
are white like ice.

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Are you feeling chilly?

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Are you really an iceberg
melting calmly and invisibly

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like a good lesson?

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Oh, lady, why are you
sleeping on the dune?

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Oh, lute with bright red
rim like painted lips which

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frame a wailing mouth,
you disturb the opaque air

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not at all.

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Your lady lies sleeping.

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Where is your song now, lute?

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Oh, moon, looking
down, erased face

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in the deep blue sky,
faded toward brightness

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where you are.

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Do you compose it?

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Do you keep it safe forever?

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Is it held in a slower gaze
than the lion's moon-shaped eye

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congealing its dull red
gleam in its center?

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Who made the lion, moon?

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Was it you?

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Did you fill the red clay
vessel tucked into its corner

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too with water or wine?

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Oh, moon, your gaze seems
different from mine.

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Oh, speak to me, moon.

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No, I am the lady.

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I am dreaming.

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The stripes of my kaftan pale
near the stripes of my pillow

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where my head lies.

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I play my lute with six
strings but pegs for nine.

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I am sleeping.

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My lute lies cradled
in sand at my side.

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It fills the spheres
with music in my dream.

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I see no lion in my dream.

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I will dream of
you now, moon, held

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floating like a child's
toy in icy water.

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Know, lady, I see you,
your strong right arm

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crooked rigidly in your
sleep, your left arm

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under the folds of
your kaftan unrendered.

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Your right hand
holding your staff

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could hurt me if you
woke up and flailed me

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or thrashed in your
sleep, a dream of a lion

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with moon-red eye
reflecting you.

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Lady, I watch you in your sleep.

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Know I hold the stillness
of my lady's sleep.

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Silent and full of water,
unfiltered by dreams,

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I am the jug.

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I have been dipped in the ice
cold lake behind the sand.

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My outside is dry now.

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My inside is cool and dark.

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I hold no moonlight.

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These same hands fashioned me.

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Know these same hands
plucked my strings.

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I am the lute, but here
you should call me oud.

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The moon composed my song
before I was made to voice it.

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It hung in the vacant
night like an unseen star.

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The stars danced, spinning,
trying to hear it.

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These same hands
woke me to play it.

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Now all nine visible
stars crepitate slowly

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where they are.

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No they vibrate here on me.

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I am something but
cannot say what.

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Grown cold, I can barely
feel light sliding along

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my distant and dumb extremities.

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They tell me nothing
of what I am.

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Tomorrow, the sun
will remind me,

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though it may cost me dearly.

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Now moonlight seems to be trying
to tell me what I have been.

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I fell from the heavens.

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I was the moon's sister.

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She loves me still.

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She washes me with light.

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No she's in my grains of light.

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But in me she is warmer.

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I'm warmer.

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I am the sand.

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The moon lent me my light
but did not make me.

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I make a bed for the lady.

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I make a pediment for
the lion's immobility.

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Molded and contoured
into a negative shape,

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I am ductile like
a reliable friend,

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except when I fly
about frantically,

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scared by the storm.

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But here there is no
storm, nor shall be moon.

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The lady lies in sand.

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The lion stands and watches her.

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Oh moon, what lies
behind your eye?

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Are all things what they seem?

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O moon, are you the
dreamer of the dream?

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No I am the star to
the left of the moon.

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As you look at me, I also seem
to lend my light to the scene.

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The lady lies very far
from me on the sand.

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No I am the star to the right
and just below the moon.

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Oh poet, who made you?

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Poet, I do not see you.

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Who made your voice?

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Where is it?

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Poet, where does your song
hang, shining in the unseen

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depth behind the night?

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