WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.560 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.560 --> 00:00:08.390 align:middle line:84% Next to last poem for those of you who want to go home. 00:00:08.390 --> 00:00:09.520 align:middle line:90% I don't mean that. 00:00:09.520 --> 00:00:11.850 align:middle line:84% But I think it helps you to know that. 00:00:11.850 --> 00:00:14.910 align:middle line:84% You wake up a little bit so you can hear the last two. 00:00:14.910 --> 00:00:15.537 align:middle line:90% Wake up. 00:00:15.537 --> 00:00:16.079 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:00:16.079 --> 00:00:16.650 align:middle line:90% I get tired. 00:00:16.650 --> 00:00:20.100 align:middle line:84% My head gets tired trying to listen. 00:00:20.100 --> 00:00:21.780 align:middle line:84% If you know it's the home stretch, 00:00:21.780 --> 00:00:24.335 align:middle line:84% suddenly there's a nice little juiciness. 00:00:24.335 --> 00:00:25.950 align:middle line:90% It comes back inside your head. 00:00:25.950 --> 00:00:29.070 align:middle line:90% 00:00:29.070 --> 00:00:31.320 align:middle line:84% People don't get tired because they don't like poetry. 00:00:31.320 --> 00:00:32.558 align:middle line:90% It's hard work. 00:00:32.558 --> 00:00:34.350 align:middle line:84% It's the most unnatural thing in the world. 00:00:34.350 --> 00:00:35.933 align:middle line:84% I was saying to somebody here, I don't 00:00:35.933 --> 00:00:38.130 align:middle line:90% know why people read poetry. 00:00:38.130 --> 00:00:40.620 align:middle line:84% My mother used to say, if that's what you meant, 00:00:40.620 --> 00:00:42.495 align:middle line:84% why don't you say it instead of-- 00:00:42.495 --> 00:00:46.478 align:middle line:90% [LAUGH] 00:00:46.478 --> 00:00:48.270 align:middle line:84% I'm sure those of you who live in the South 00:00:48.270 --> 00:00:51.347 align:middle line:84% know the rest of the sentence was if that's what you meant, 00:00:51.347 --> 00:00:53.805 align:middle line:84% why didn't you say it instead of going all around the barn? 00:00:53.805 --> 00:00:58.770 align:middle line:90% 00:00:58.770 --> 00:01:00.700 align:middle line:90% This is called Going Wrong. 00:01:00.700 --> 00:01:02.550 align:middle line:84% Now I'm living in a Greek village 00:01:02.550 --> 00:01:06.690 align:middle line:84% on the island of Lesbos, up in a Greek village where nobody, 00:01:06.690 --> 00:01:07.890 align:middle line:90% no foreigner had ever lived. 00:01:07.890 --> 00:01:10.500 align:middle line:90% It's a wonderful place. 00:01:10.500 --> 00:01:13.570 align:middle line:84% All the young men have gone away to work on ships. 00:01:13.570 --> 00:01:16.020 align:middle line:84% It's just the old men and women and children. 00:01:16.020 --> 00:01:20.910 align:middle line:84% It's the Greece that will last about another maybe 15 years. 00:01:20.910 --> 00:01:24.270 align:middle line:84% It's a Greece that's lived for 2,000, 3,000 years 00:01:24.270 --> 00:01:27.930 align:middle line:84% and now it's over because time has speeded up 00:01:27.930 --> 00:01:31.243 align:middle line:84% and American girls come in bikinis, 00:01:31.243 --> 00:01:32.910 align:middle line:84% the kids don't want to stay on the farm, 00:01:32.910 --> 00:01:34.577 align:middle line:84% the boys don't want to stay on the farm. 00:01:34.577 --> 00:01:38.570 align:middle line:90% 00:01:38.570 --> 00:01:41.900 align:middle line:84% A famous writer once said that the dark ages 00:01:41.900 --> 00:01:45.350 align:middle line:84% ended when the bells began to ring 00:01:45.350 --> 00:01:49.400 align:middle line:84% and the ships began to sail, meaning that in the Middle Ages 00:01:49.400 --> 00:01:52.010 align:middle line:90% you lived in God's time. 00:01:52.010 --> 00:01:53.450 align:middle line:90% There was no time. 00:01:53.450 --> 00:01:57.830 align:middle line:84% You were living here until you went to your grave 00:01:57.830 --> 00:01:59.600 align:middle line:90% and into heaven. 00:01:59.600 --> 00:02:00.800 align:middle line:90% You didn't have any clocks. 00:02:00.800 --> 00:02:03.430 align:middle line:84% There were no public clocks, no wristwatches. 00:02:03.430 --> 00:02:06.290 align:middle line:90% They didn't count time. 00:02:06.290 --> 00:02:09.530 align:middle line:84% They say there's a village in Spain where people don't 00:02:09.530 --> 00:02:11.270 align:middle line:90% keep records of the birthday. 00:02:11.270 --> 00:02:12.920 align:middle line:90% Nobody knows how old they are. 00:02:12.920 --> 00:02:16.455 align:middle line:84% It said to be the youngest village in the world 00:02:16.455 --> 00:02:18.205 align:middle line:84% because you don't know what's appropriate. 00:02:18.205 --> 00:02:19.580 align:middle line:84% If you don't know that you're 40, 00:02:19.580 --> 00:02:21.050 align:middle line:90% you don't know to act that way. 00:02:21.050 --> 00:02:26.640 align:middle line:90% 00:02:26.640 --> 00:02:28.785 align:middle line:84% I'll go off and talk about the way they come in 00:02:28.785 --> 00:02:29.940 align:middle line:90% and look at tomatoes. 00:02:29.940 --> 00:02:31.980 align:middle line:84% The farmers will come in with two tomatoes 00:02:31.980 --> 00:02:33.688 align:middle line:84% and they'll put them down and go sit down 00:02:33.688 --> 00:02:35.940 align:middle line:84% and nothing will happen for 20 minutes. 00:02:35.940 --> 00:02:39.300 align:middle line:84% Then an old farmer will get up and go over and stand and look 00:02:39.300 --> 00:02:45.330 align:middle line:84% at the tomatoes for a long time sometimes. 00:02:45.330 --> 00:02:47.700 align:middle line:84% They go over and say nothing, go over and sit down. 00:02:47.700 --> 00:02:50.020 align:middle line:84% Then maybe an hour will go by and maybe another farmer 00:02:50.020 --> 00:02:53.730 align:middle line:84% will come over and pick up the tomato and turn it over. 00:02:53.730 --> 00:02:55.950 align:middle line:90% It's wonderful. 00:02:55.950 --> 00:02:58.200 align:middle line:90% It's so pure. 00:02:58.200 --> 00:02:59.550 align:middle line:90% Incredible. 00:02:59.550 --> 00:03:01.920 align:middle line:84% Well I'll tell one little thing I liked. 00:03:01.920 --> 00:03:03.600 align:middle line:84% All the old women hang their laundry 00:03:03.600 --> 00:03:08.220 align:middle line:84% out, except the one beautiful, young wife in the village. 00:03:08.220 --> 00:03:11.370 align:middle line:90% Her lingerie is never hung out. 00:03:11.370 --> 00:03:16.980 align:middle line:90% 00:03:16.980 --> 00:03:19.860 align:middle line:84% And this story tells about how they would bring-- 00:03:19.860 --> 00:03:24.090 align:middle line:84% Every morning a truck would come up at dawn with the fish catch 00:03:24.090 --> 00:03:25.980 align:middle line:90% from the sea. 00:03:25.980 --> 00:03:28.770 align:middle line:84% You kind of run up when you hear the whistle 00:03:28.770 --> 00:03:30.870 align:middle line:84% and you get in with all the old women 00:03:30.870 --> 00:03:33.040 align:middle line:84% and you kind of push your way to the front. 00:03:33.040 --> 00:03:33.540 align:middle line:90% You don't. 00:03:33.540 --> 00:03:34.150 align:middle line:90% Not with these women. 00:03:34.150 --> 00:03:35.400 align:middle line:84% You don't push your way to the front. 00:03:35.400 --> 00:03:36.240 align:middle line:90% You wait your turn. 00:03:36.240 --> 00:03:37.572 align:middle line:90% I wait my turn. 00:03:37.572 --> 00:03:39.030 align:middle line:84% They get all the good fish and then 00:03:39.030 --> 00:03:43.470 align:middle line:90% I get fish I think for a penny. 00:03:43.470 --> 00:03:46.410 align:middle line:84% So there's no hurry, but you get caught up in the thing. 00:03:46.410 --> 00:03:49.920 align:middle line:90% 00:03:49.920 --> 00:03:53.140 align:middle line:90% The fish are dreadful. 00:03:53.140 --> 00:03:55.980 align:middle line:84% I mean, they're fresh but there's something mysterious 00:03:55.980 --> 00:03:56.670 align:middle line:90% about fish. 00:03:56.670 --> 00:03:58.170 align:middle line:90% They're not like us. 00:03:58.170 --> 00:04:00.180 align:middle line:90% The fish are dreadful. 00:04:00.180 --> 00:04:04.860 align:middle line:84% They're brought up the mountain in the dawn most days, 00:04:04.860 --> 00:04:10.080 align:middle line:84% beautiful and alien and cold from night under the sea, 00:04:10.080 --> 00:04:14.790 align:middle line:84% the grand rooms fading from the flat eyes. 00:04:14.790 --> 00:04:21.540 align:middle line:84% Soft machinery of the dark, the man thinks as he washes them. 00:04:21.540 --> 00:04:25.800 align:middle line:84% "What do you know of my machinery?" the Lord says. 00:04:25.800 --> 00:04:29.850 align:middle line:84% "Sure," the man says quietly and cuts into them, 00:04:29.850 --> 00:04:32.880 align:middle line:84% laying back the dozen struts, getting 00:04:32.880 --> 00:04:37.320 align:middle line:84% at the muck of something terrible. 00:04:37.320 --> 00:04:41.160 align:middle line:84% "You are the one who chooses to live this way," says the Lord. 00:04:41.160 --> 00:04:43.750 align:middle line:84% "I built cities where things are human. 00:04:43.750 --> 00:04:47.880 align:middle line:84% I make Tuscany and you go to live with rock and solitude." 00:04:47.880 --> 00:04:51.780 align:middle line:84% The man washes away the blood and arranges the fish prettily, 00:04:51.780 --> 00:04:56.040 align:middle line:84% starts the onions and hot olive oil and puts in peppers. 00:04:56.040 --> 00:04:59.280 align:middle line:84% "You have started to live without women." 00:04:59.280 --> 00:05:01.560 align:middle line:84% He takes everything out and puts in the fish. 00:05:01.560 --> 00:05:03.450 align:middle line:90% "No one knows where you are. 00:05:03.450 --> 00:05:04.920 align:middle line:90% People forget you. 00:05:04.920 --> 00:05:07.440 align:middle line:90% You are vain and stubborn." 00:05:07.440 --> 00:05:11.970 align:middle line:84% The man slices tomatoes and lemons, takes out the fish 00:05:11.970 --> 00:05:14.610 align:middle line:90% and scrambles eggs. 00:05:14.610 --> 00:05:18.000 align:middle line:84% I am not stubborn, he thinks, laying all of it 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:20.310 align:middle line:84% out on the big table in the courtyard 00:05:20.310 --> 00:05:24.990 align:middle line:84% full of the early sun, the shadow of swallows 00:05:24.990 --> 00:05:27.150 align:middle line:90% flying on the food. 00:05:27.150 --> 00:05:31.910 align:middle line:84% Not stubborn at all, just greedy.