WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.720 align:middle line:90%


00:00:00.720 --> 00:00:03.667 align:middle line:84%
One more poem from the
book, the title poem,

00:00:03.667 --> 00:00:04.875 align:middle line:90%
called "Permission to Speak."

00:00:04.875 --> 00:00:07.740 align:middle line:90%


00:00:07.740 --> 00:00:11.700 align:middle line:84%
The poem was written from a
memory of a spring snowstorm

00:00:11.700 --> 00:00:15.330 align:middle line:84%
after flowers had
already come out, leaves

00:00:15.330 --> 00:00:17.120 align:middle line:90%
on the trees in New England.

00:00:17.120 --> 00:00:19.560 align:middle line:84%
It had been a spring
storm, and it's

00:00:19.560 --> 00:00:21.330 align:middle line:90%
very confusing for a while.

00:00:21.330 --> 00:00:24.900 align:middle line:84%
And it triggered off an
earlier memory of something--

00:00:24.900 --> 00:00:27.300 align:middle line:90%
a kind of a deja vu experience.

00:00:27.300 --> 00:00:30.390 align:middle line:90%


00:00:30.390 --> 00:00:33.510 align:middle line:90%
"Permission to Speak."

00:00:33.510 --> 00:00:36.210 align:middle line:84%
"Mornings from my
upstairs window

00:00:36.210 --> 00:00:39.630 align:middle line:84%
I can see a gray stand
of birch and further down

00:00:39.630 --> 00:00:43.620 align:middle line:84%
a hickory grove, then the
river that powers the mill that

00:00:43.620 --> 00:00:45.570 align:middle line:90%
grinds flour.

00:00:45.570 --> 00:00:48.570 align:middle line:90%
Later, I'll eat the bread.

00:00:48.570 --> 00:00:51.750 align:middle line:84%
Last night a spring snow
blurred the countryside,

00:00:51.750 --> 00:00:55.380 align:middle line:90%
and for a while I lost my way.

00:00:55.380 --> 00:00:58.920 align:middle line:84%
I thought I saw a boy in a
crimson bathing suit whirl

00:00:58.920 --> 00:01:01.680 align:middle line:90%
downstream on an inner tube.

00:01:01.680 --> 00:01:06.330 align:middle line:84%
So I closed my eyes on the old
words for birch and hickory

00:01:06.330 --> 00:01:09.450 align:middle line:84%
and snow like a
novice in his cell

00:01:09.450 --> 00:01:14.250 align:middle line:84%
discovering light, not the
One, but another about which

00:01:14.250 --> 00:01:17.520 align:middle line:84%
he'll remain silent
all his life.

00:01:17.520 --> 00:01:20.670 align:middle line:90%
I came to myself at the window.

00:01:20.670 --> 00:01:23.610 align:middle line:84%
That boy, already
seen in memory,

00:01:23.610 --> 00:01:26.250 align:middle line:90%
gives me permission to speak.

00:01:26.250 --> 00:01:29.250 align:middle line:84%
After a spring snow
a father and son

00:01:29.250 --> 00:01:31.920 align:middle line:84%
took a sleigh ride
along the riverbank,

00:01:31.920 --> 00:01:34.170 align:middle line:90%
and what the son couldn't see--

00:01:34.170 --> 00:01:38.190 align:middle line:84%
the particular hills and
trees lost to whiteness--

00:01:38.190 --> 00:01:40.350 align:middle line:90%
made him cry.

00:01:40.350 --> 00:01:42.990 align:middle line:84%
The father snapped
the reins and pointed

00:01:42.990 --> 00:01:47.310 align:middle line:84%
at what must have been a red
fox sliding past a birch--

00:01:47.310 --> 00:01:50.370 align:middle line:84%
'Look at that fellow
in the red nightgown!'

00:01:50.370 --> 00:01:53.640 align:middle line:84%
From which the son will
date his love of the world,

00:01:53.640 --> 00:01:56.330 align:middle line:90%
traveling swiftly past."