WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.050 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.050 --> 00:00:04.690 align:middle line:84% I think I'll just read a handful more and a new poem. 00:00:04.690 --> 00:00:08.200 align:middle line:90% 00:00:08.200 --> 00:00:11.440 align:middle line:84% I mentioned in my class visit today 00:00:11.440 --> 00:00:15.430 align:middle line:84% that I was encouraged by the person the poet, 00:00:15.430 --> 00:00:18.430 align:middle line:84% the dear friend to whom I dedicate this book, Mary Jo 00:00:18.430 --> 00:00:21.700 align:middle line:84% Bang, that I take out a poem that 00:00:21.700 --> 00:00:23.200 align:middle line:90% was in the earlier manuscript. 00:00:23.200 --> 00:00:25.300 align:middle line:84% It was a poem that was not written in 20 lines, 00:00:25.300 --> 00:00:28.480 align:middle line:84% and she thought you should just really restrict it to 20 lines, 00:00:28.480 --> 00:00:30.332 align:middle line:84% although there is one that's in 24. 00:00:30.332 --> 00:00:32.290 align:middle line:84% And so I said, well, I will take that poem out, 00:00:32.290 --> 00:00:33.498 align:middle line:90% but I better write a new one. 00:00:33.498 --> 00:00:38.023 align:middle line:84% And that day, someone from the Shanghai Botanical Garden 00:00:38.023 --> 00:00:39.940 align:middle line:84% reached out to me and asked me to write a poem 00:00:39.940 --> 00:00:43.600 align:middle line:84% about a piece of fruit, and this not-- that I thought that that 00:00:43.600 --> 00:00:44.920 align:middle line:90% was a great coincidence. 00:00:44.920 --> 00:00:46.840 align:middle line:84% It seemed like kismet, and so I did. 00:00:46.840 --> 00:00:49.690 align:middle line:84% I wrote-- and I had also very recently encountered 00:00:49.690 --> 00:00:51.760 align:middle line:90% a peach of some import. 00:00:51.760 --> 00:00:54.100 align:middle line:84% And-- when I was back up in Rhode Island, 00:00:54.100 --> 00:00:57.070 align:middle line:84% it was covered in more peach fuzz than you've ever seen. 00:00:57.070 --> 00:00:59.655 align:middle line:84% I'm not sure if this is typical for peaches 00:00:59.655 --> 00:01:01.030 align:middle line:84% when they're growing on their own 00:01:01.030 --> 00:01:02.870 align:middle line:84% before they make their way to market. 00:01:02.870 --> 00:01:05.120 align:middle line:84% This was covered in like cotton floss. 00:01:05.120 --> 00:01:10.940 align:middle line:84% This was weird and bit a little bit off putting, 00:01:10.940 --> 00:01:13.730 align:middle line:90% but I still went for it. 00:01:13.730 --> 00:01:15.980 align:middle line:84% And here's a poem called "To Eat a Peach." 00:01:15.980 --> 00:01:18.140 align:middle line:84% And I swear to you I did not have Prufrock 00:01:18.140 --> 00:01:20.330 align:middle line:84% in mind, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, 00:01:20.330 --> 00:01:22.070 align:middle line:90% when called upon to eat a peach. 00:01:22.070 --> 00:01:24.860 align:middle line:84% No one should believe me, but it is true 00:01:24.860 --> 00:01:26.510 align:middle line:84% and I embrace the fact that it does 00:01:26.510 --> 00:01:29.930 align:middle line:84% seem like I'm acknowledging, "do I dare to eat a peach?" 00:01:29.930 --> 00:01:31.790 align:middle line:84% And this is called "To Eat a Peach." 00:01:31.790 --> 00:01:34.190 align:middle line:84% Time is so hard to fathom, maybe I knew 00:01:34.190 --> 00:01:35.660 align:middle line:90% what I was doing all along. 00:01:35.660 --> 00:01:36.890 align:middle line:90% "To Eat a Peach." 00:01:36.890 --> 00:01:39.230 align:middle line:84% One day I won't react when called 00:01:39.230 --> 00:01:42.200 align:middle line:84% by name or to the light slap on the cheek 00:01:42.200 --> 00:01:45.080 align:middle line:84% to break me from the sleep that isn't sleep. 00:01:45.080 --> 00:01:47.720 align:middle line:84% I will be still, and yet I won't. 00:01:47.720 --> 00:01:50.870 align:middle line:84% One night my living feet will graze the floor 00:01:50.870 --> 00:01:54.110 align:middle line:84% like ducks across a pond one final time 00:01:54.110 --> 00:01:57.860 align:middle line:84% and lift off into the dark of anyone's guess. 00:01:57.860 --> 00:02:02.060 align:middle line:84% Somewhere a word is waiting to be the last I speak. 00:02:02.060 --> 00:02:04.790 align:middle line:84% It might be I used it in passing today. 00:02:04.790 --> 00:02:06.890 align:middle line:90% It might be I'm using it now. 00:02:06.890 --> 00:02:09.020 align:middle line:90% We know this all too well-- 00:02:09.020 --> 00:02:13.160 align:middle line:84% all things end, and each specifically as this peach 00:02:13.160 --> 00:02:18.380 align:middle line:84% picked at an orchard days ago, skin shaggy as a lagomorph. 00:02:18.380 --> 00:02:21.710 align:middle line:84% You have to rub it off under cold running water 00:02:21.710 --> 00:02:24.560 align:middle line:84% before you'd ever dream of eating it. 00:02:24.560 --> 00:02:27.050 align:middle line:84% In all cases, there's a peach that's 00:02:27.050 --> 00:02:31.040 align:middle line:84% closer to where you are than all other peaches. 00:02:31.040 --> 00:02:34.460 align:middle line:84% Reach out and take it before what's next. 00:02:34.460 --> 00:02:37.700 align:middle line:84% Who's been ripening in a brown paper bag? 00:02:37.700 --> 00:02:39.080 align:middle line:90% We all have. 00:02:39.080 --> 00:02:43.700 align:middle line:84% Isolating, solving for X. I worry the divots mark places 00:02:43.700 --> 00:02:46.400 align:middle line:84% where the flesh has succumbed to catastrophe, 00:02:46.400 --> 00:02:50.720 align:middle line:84% but they surprise me every time, almost like sunset, 00:02:50.720 --> 00:02:54.020 align:middle line:84% or like a wellness center I enter through my mouth, 00:02:54.020 --> 00:02:57.800 align:middle line:84% till I'm right in the middle of the last peach of a season 00:02:57.800 --> 00:02:59.270 align:middle line:90% thick with peaches-- 00:02:59.270 --> 00:03:02.030 align:middle line:84% its juice ridiculous in rivers down 00:03:02.030 --> 00:03:04.700 align:middle line:84% my chin, liturgy of almond pushed 00:03:04.700 --> 00:03:06.680 align:middle line:90% through plush walls of mango-- 00:03:06.680 --> 00:03:11.500 align:middle line:84% and in the heaven of it, I don't even know who I am. 00:03:11.500 --> 00:03:12.000 align:middle line:90%