WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.930 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.930 --> 00:00:05.160 align:middle line:84% And here's a poem about my brother, who came 00:00:05.160 --> 00:00:08.485 align:middle line:90% to visit the States in 1974. 00:00:08.485 --> 00:00:10.110 align:middle line:84% This poem is called "Talk to Me, Baby." 00:00:10.110 --> 00:00:14.330 align:middle line:90% 00:00:14.330 --> 00:00:17.618 align:middle line:84% And then I'll read three more poems to finish. 00:00:17.618 --> 00:00:18.410 align:middle line:90% "Talk to Me, Baby." 00:00:18.410 --> 00:00:20.868 align:middle line:90% 00:00:20.868 --> 00:00:22.160 align:middle line:90% I refer to the Boundary Waters. 00:00:22.160 --> 00:00:27.140 align:middle line:84% That's a wilderness area in Northern Minnesota. 00:00:27.140 --> 00:00:29.870 align:middle line:84% "A friend at a cocktail party tells me 00:00:29.870 --> 00:00:32.210 align:middle line:84% of being on a fishing trip up north 00:00:32.210 --> 00:00:34.550 align:middle line:84% and meeting some men from Illinois who showed him 00:00:34.550 --> 00:00:37.430 align:middle line:84% how to clean and fillet a fish properly 00:00:37.430 --> 00:00:39.830 align:middle line:84% and of how when one particular pike was stripped 00:00:39.830 --> 00:00:43.700 align:middle line:84% almost clean, almost all of him gone, 00:00:43.700 --> 00:00:45.680 align:middle line:84% the jaw with the raise of the teeth opened 00:00:45.680 --> 00:00:48.890 align:middle line:84% and some kind of cry came from the creature. 00:00:48.890 --> 00:00:52.520 align:middle line:84% That head on the end of almost nobody. 00:00:52.520 --> 00:00:55.445 align:middle line:84% And the man with the knife said, 'Talk to me, baby.' 00:00:55.445 --> 00:00:58.430 align:middle line:90% 00:00:58.430 --> 00:01:00.660 align:middle line:84% Up in the Boundary Waters last weekend. 00:01:00.660 --> 00:01:03.080 align:middle line:84% I hooked a trout, my first, and played him. 00:01:03.080 --> 00:01:05.570 align:middle line:84% I got into the shallows and tried to raise him, 00:01:05.570 --> 00:01:09.020 align:middle line:84% and the girls got down into the water with my leather hat. 00:01:09.020 --> 00:01:10.610 align:middle line:90% We hadn't brought a net. 00:01:10.610 --> 00:01:12.140 align:middle line:84% And I was yelling, 'I've got a fish, 00:01:12.140 --> 00:01:14.960 align:middle line:84% I've got a fish,' out into the evening. 00:01:14.960 --> 00:01:18.680 align:middle line:84% And the girls tried to get him into the hat and did once, 00:01:18.680 --> 00:01:20.180 align:middle line:90% but then he was out again. 00:01:20.180 --> 00:01:24.260 align:middle line:84% A wiggle, a flap, that fish jumped out of my hat. 00:01:24.260 --> 00:01:26.960 align:middle line:84% And the line got loose, jibbed, snapped, 00:01:26.960 --> 00:01:30.680 align:middle line:84% and he was back in the water, the hook in him. 00:01:30.680 --> 00:01:33.110 align:middle line:84% And he didn't turn into a glimmering girl 00:01:33.110 --> 00:01:36.170 align:middle line:84% like he did for young Willie Yeats, 00:01:36.170 --> 00:01:38.810 align:middle line:84% nor was he a Jesus like for Lawrence. 00:01:38.810 --> 00:01:40.910 align:middle line:84% He just drifted head down near the shallows, 00:01:40.910 --> 00:01:43.370 align:middle line:90% huge, the huge hook in him. 00:01:43.370 --> 00:01:45.710 align:middle line:84% And Lewis and Phil came up in the other canoe, 00:01:45.710 --> 00:01:49.070 align:middle line:84% and we got the flashlight on him and tried to get hold of him, 00:01:49.070 --> 00:01:50.930 align:middle line:84% but then somehow we lost him drifting about. 00:01:50.930 --> 00:01:53.270 align:middle line:84% He was not there but gone somewhere deeper 00:01:53.270 --> 00:01:58.840 align:middle line:84% into the water, every minute darker, my hook and him. 00:01:58.840 --> 00:02:00.850 align:middle line:84% I hooked five or six snags after that, 00:02:00.850 --> 00:02:03.160 align:middle line:84% yelling each time that each one was 00:02:03.160 --> 00:02:07.990 align:middle line:84% a fish bigger than the last, but I brought nothing living up. 00:02:07.990 --> 00:02:10.090 align:middle line:84% And the other canoe went ghostly on the water, 00:02:10.090 --> 00:02:14.860 align:middle line:84% silvery like a dish with two quiet eggs in it. 00:02:14.860 --> 00:02:17.350 align:middle line:84% And the pines were masked, dark, and stood 00:02:17.350 --> 00:02:20.440 align:middle line:84% and smelled strong like a bodyguard of dried fish. 00:02:20.440 --> 00:02:23.960 align:middle line:90% 00:02:23.960 --> 00:02:27.380 align:middle line:84% Breathing my brother in my house and breathing his wife 00:02:27.380 --> 00:02:29.120 align:middle line:90% beside him. 00:02:29.120 --> 00:02:35.090 align:middle line:84% Breathing my brother in America, his body in my bed, her body. 00:02:35.090 --> 00:02:38.330 align:middle line:84% Their tent, the color of the sun in my garden, 00:02:38.330 --> 00:02:40.610 align:middle line:90% and they are riding West. 00:02:40.610 --> 00:02:42.770 align:middle line:84% And both of us riding West, brother, since we 00:02:42.770 --> 00:02:47.300 align:middle line:84% swam out of the father heading six years apart the same way. 00:02:47.300 --> 00:02:51.980 align:middle line:84% The dog stares at me, not knowing why I have not fed him. 00:02:51.980 --> 00:02:55.130 align:middle line:90% The cat crying to come in. 00:02:55.130 --> 00:02:57.380 align:middle line:90% Whom we feed sustain us. 00:02:57.380 --> 00:03:00.560 align:middle line:84% Who need us, we keep breathing for. 00:03:00.560 --> 00:03:02.150 align:middle line:84% I've seen you at supper with friends 00:03:02.150 --> 00:03:03.980 align:middle line:84% put your hands to the guitar strings 00:03:03.980 --> 00:03:06.080 align:middle line:90% and bring strong music out. 00:03:06.080 --> 00:03:08.810 align:middle line:84% Seen you sit and pick out a tune on the piano on a friend's 00:03:08.810 --> 00:03:10.850 align:middle line:90% penny whistle. 00:03:10.850 --> 00:03:13.430 align:middle line:90% To hold an instrument, to play. 00:03:13.430 --> 00:03:17.150 align:middle line:90% To hold a pen, to write. 00:03:17.150 --> 00:03:21.140 align:middle line:84% To do as little harm as possible in the universe. 00:03:21.140 --> 00:03:25.040 align:middle line:84% To help all traveling people West, West. 00:03:25.040 --> 00:03:26.690 align:middle line:90% You are not alone, not ever. 00:03:26.690 --> 00:03:29.000 align:middle line:90% We all go with you. 00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:30.170 align:middle line:90% Only the body stays behind. 00:03:30.170 --> 00:03:32.680 align:middle line:90% 00:03:32.680 --> 00:03:36.040 align:middle line:84% When I stand on my island, a Napoleon, one hand 00:03:36.040 --> 00:03:39.190 align:middle line:84% nailed to my chest, the writing hand. 00:03:39.190 --> 00:03:40.780 align:middle line:84% When I can only stare at the ocean, 00:03:40.780 --> 00:03:42.940 align:middle line:84% at the birds running and turning against the light, 00:03:42.940 --> 00:03:48.490 align:middle line:84% when I am the Illinois man and his kind, talk to me baby. 00:03:48.490 --> 00:03:51.040 align:middle line:84% The one with the knife inside sometimes. 00:03:51.040 --> 00:03:52.720 align:middle line:84% The one you may meet on your travels. 00:03:52.720 --> 00:03:55.060 align:middle line:84% The one behind you in the line to get on the bus. 00:03:55.060 --> 00:03:59.710 align:middle line:84% The one arranging a deal in a phone booth as you drive past. 00:03:59.710 --> 00:04:04.030 align:middle line:84% When I become that thing I sometimes become, 00:04:04.030 --> 00:04:06.820 align:middle line:84% I will go into the green of this visit. 00:04:06.820 --> 00:04:09.970 align:middle line:84% The green you asked me to try to see after my earlier, 00:04:09.970 --> 00:04:12.495 align:middle line:90% darker poems for you. 00:04:12.495 --> 00:04:13.870 align:middle line:84% And this is the fourth one, darker 00:04:13.870 --> 00:04:17.140 align:middle line:84% than I meant, since the man with the knife swam into it. 00:04:17.140 --> 00:04:18.880 align:middle line:84% Or when that killer stands over our city, 00:04:18.880 --> 00:04:21.550 align:middle line:84% our sleeping and loving places-- tent, canoe, cabin 00:04:21.550 --> 00:04:23.290 align:middle line:90% of sweet people. 00:04:23.290 --> 00:04:25.660 align:middle line:84% I will hear with your ears the songs 00:04:25.660 --> 00:04:29.320 align:middle line:84% of the birds, of the new world that's so quick on you, 00:04:29.320 --> 00:04:31.570 align:middle line:84% and look for their wings that flame and flash-- 00:04:31.570 --> 00:04:36.140 align:middle line:84% there, there among the leaves and branches. 00:04:36.140 --> 00:04:40.190 align:middle line:84% Too often I have wanted to slip away the hook in me, 00:04:40.190 --> 00:04:43.880 align:middle line:84% to roll off the bed and into the dark waters under it, 00:04:43.880 --> 00:04:47.630 align:middle line:84% to drift head down hide, hide the hook in me. 00:04:47.630 --> 00:04:49.700 align:middle line:84% To row in the wet ashes of the father-- 00:04:49.700 --> 00:04:52.100 align:middle line:84% wet with the death of the father and not 00:04:52.100 --> 00:04:56.090 align:middle line:84% try to burn my way upward the sun rising. 00:04:56.090 --> 00:05:01.340 align:middle line:84% I swear to you now, I will survive, rise up and chant 00:05:01.340 --> 00:05:03.200 align:middle line:90% my way through these losses. 00:05:03.200 --> 00:05:07.790 align:middle line:84% And you, you brother, whatever that is, same blood. 00:05:07.790 --> 00:05:09.590 align:middle line:84% You who swim in the same waters, you 00:05:09.590 --> 00:05:12.980 align:middle line:84% promise me to make your music too. 00:05:12.980 --> 00:05:18.440 align:middle line:84% Whatever the hurt, or when we are almost only mouth, 00:05:18.440 --> 00:05:22.400 align:middle line:84% when we are almost only a head stuck on the pole of the body 00:05:22.400 --> 00:05:26.680 align:middle line:84% and the man with the knife says talk to me, baby. 00:05:26.680 --> 00:05:30.890 align:middle line:84% Let's refuse him, brother, both, all of us. 00:05:30.890 --> 00:05:33.530 align:middle line:84% And striking the spine like an instrument inside, 00:05:33.530 --> 00:05:35.720 align:middle line:84% like birds with even the body broken, 00:05:35.720 --> 00:05:40.520 align:middle line:84% our feathers fiery there, there among the leaves and branches. 00:05:40.520 --> 00:05:41.660 align:middle line:90% Make no sound. 00:05:41.660 --> 00:05:43.550 align:middle line:90% He will know. 00:05:43.550 --> 00:05:48.440 align:middle line:84% Like birds, my brother, birds of the new world, sing." 00:05:48.440 --> 00:05:51.686 align:middle line:90% 00:05:51.686 --> 00:05:55.123 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:05:55.123 --> 00:05:59.560 align:middle line:90% 00:05:59.560 --> 00:06:01.620 align:middle line:90% Thank you very much.