WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.200 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.200 --> 00:00:06.690 align:middle line:84% Well, the next poem is a narrative poem, it's a story. 00:00:06.690 --> 00:00:09.330 align:middle line:84% And it's a historical fantasy which 00:00:09.330 --> 00:00:13.740 align:middle line:84% takes place in October 1859 in what 00:00:13.740 --> 00:00:15.750 align:middle line:84% is now the State of West Virginia, 00:00:15.750 --> 00:00:18.150 align:middle line:90% but was then Virginia. 00:00:18.150 --> 00:00:20.700 align:middle line:84% And I'm just going to tell you a little bit about what 00:00:20.700 --> 00:00:23.910 align:middle line:84% happens in it to sort of help you listen. 00:00:23.910 --> 00:00:28.830 align:middle line:84% In this poem, a young white woman leaving home 00:00:28.830 --> 00:00:33.450 align:middle line:84% intersects by accident with the abolitionist base 00:00:33.450 --> 00:00:36.450 align:middle line:90% of John Brown at Harpers Ferry. 00:00:36.450 --> 00:00:39.300 align:middle line:84% And John Brown's plan was to raid the federal arsenal 00:00:39.300 --> 00:00:45.720 align:middle line:84% at Harpers Ferry and arm the slaves for a slave uprising, 00:00:45.720 --> 00:00:48.060 align:middle line:90% the Afro-American slaves. 00:00:48.060 --> 00:00:53.430 align:middle line:84% At the end of the poem, there is a brief appearance 00:00:53.430 --> 00:00:58.500 align:middle line:84% by the great black anti-slavery activist and strategist, 00:00:58.500 --> 00:01:04.470 align:middle line:84% Harriet Tubman, who was known to the people as General Moses. 00:01:04.470 --> 00:01:07.920 align:middle line:84% Now, in fact, Harriet Tubman never came to Harpers Ferry. 00:01:07.920 --> 00:01:11.940 align:middle line:84% She and John Brown were in contact. 00:01:11.940 --> 00:01:13.920 align:middle line:84% She felt that the raid was going to be 00:01:13.920 --> 00:01:17.190 align:middle line:84% made at a very inopportune time and she severed connections 00:01:17.190 --> 00:01:19.770 align:middle line:90% with him before it. 00:01:19.770 --> 00:01:22.980 align:middle line:84% But so her appearance in the poem is a fiction. 00:01:22.980 --> 00:01:26.040 align:middle line:84% And the rest of the poem is a fiction, or as I say, 00:01:26.040 --> 00:01:30.240 align:middle line:84% a historical fantasy, but it happens in history. 00:01:30.240 --> 00:01:31.095 align:middle line:90% Harpers Ferry. 00:01:31.095 --> 00:01:34.200 align:middle line:90% 00:01:34.200 --> 00:01:36.960 align:middle line:90% Where do I get this landscape? 00:01:36.960 --> 00:01:39.510 align:middle line:84% Two river roads glittering at each other's 00:01:39.510 --> 00:01:44.190 align:middle line:84% throats, the Virginia mountains fading across the gorge, 00:01:44.190 --> 00:01:48.690 align:middle line:84% the October shortened sun, the wooden town, 00:01:48.690 --> 00:01:52.680 align:middle line:84% rebellion sprouting encampments in the hills, 00:01:52.680 --> 00:01:55.260 align:middle line:84% and a white girl running away from home, 00:01:55.260 --> 00:01:57.900 align:middle line:90% who will have to see it all. 00:01:57.900 --> 00:01:59.520 align:middle line:90% But where do I get this? 00:01:59.520 --> 00:02:02.820 align:middle line:84% How do I know how the light quails 00:02:02.820 --> 00:02:04.830 align:middle line:90% from the trembling waters? 00:02:04.830 --> 00:02:08.520 align:middle line:84% Autumn goes to ash from ridge to ridge. 00:02:08.520 --> 00:02:12.780 align:middle line:84% How behind the gunmetal pines, the guns are piled. 00:02:12.780 --> 00:02:18.000 align:middle line:84% The sun drops and the watch fires burn. 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:23.070 align:middle line:84% I know the men's faces tremble like smoky crevices in a cave 00:02:23.070 --> 00:02:28.110 align:middle line:84% where candle stumps have been stuck on ledges by fugitives. 00:02:28.110 --> 00:02:30.660 align:middle line:84% The men are dark and sometimes pale 00:02:30.660 --> 00:02:36.720 align:middle line:84% like her, their eyes parched or blank or squinting, all by now 00:02:36.720 --> 00:02:39.930 align:middle line:84% are queer outside and out of bounds 00:02:39.930 --> 00:02:42.480 align:middle line:84% and have no membership in any brotherhood. 00:02:42.480 --> 00:02:46.380 align:middle line:84% But this where power is handed from the ones who 00:02:46.380 --> 00:02:50.710 align:middle line:84% can get it to the ones who have been refused. 00:02:50.710 --> 00:02:54.210 align:middle line:84% It's a simple act to steal guns and hand them 00:02:54.210 --> 00:02:57.720 align:middle line:84% to the slaves, who would have thought it? 00:02:57.720 --> 00:03:00.300 align:middle line:90% 00:03:00.300 --> 00:03:03.990 align:middle line:84% Running away from home is slower than her quick feet thought. 00:03:03.990 --> 00:03:07.290 align:middle line:84% And this is not the vague and lowering north ghost 00:03:07.290 --> 00:03:10.470 align:middle line:84% land of deeper snows than she has ever pictured. 00:03:10.470 --> 00:03:13.950 align:middle line:84% But this is one exact and definite place, 00:03:13.950 --> 00:03:16.890 align:middle line:84% a wooden village at the junction of two rivers, 00:03:16.890 --> 00:03:22.590 align:middle line:84% two trestle bridges, hinged and splayed, low houses crawling up 00:03:22.590 --> 00:03:24.540 align:middle line:90% the mountains. 00:03:24.540 --> 00:03:29.220 align:middle line:84% Suppose she slashes her leg on a slash pine's tooth? 00:03:29.220 --> 00:03:31.230 align:middle line:90% Ties the leg in a kerchief. 00:03:31.230 --> 00:03:33.460 align:middle line:90% Knocks on the door of a house. 00:03:33.460 --> 00:03:36.000 align:middle line:90% The first on the edge of town. 00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:37.530 align:middle line:90% Has to beg water. 00:03:37.530 --> 00:03:40.110 align:middle line:84% Won't tell her family name, afraid someone 00:03:40.110 --> 00:03:42.270 align:middle line:90% will know her family face. 00:03:42.270 --> 00:03:45.390 align:middle line:84% Lies with her throbbing leg on the vined veranda, 00:03:45.390 --> 00:03:48.150 align:middle line:84% where the woman of the house wanted her out of there. 00:03:48.150 --> 00:03:53.640 align:middle line:84% That was clear, yet with a stern and courteous patience leaned 00:03:53.640 --> 00:03:58.620 align:middle line:84% above her with cold tea, water from the sweetest spring, 00:03:58.620 --> 00:04:02.580 align:middle line:84% mint from the same source and later with rags 00:04:02.580 --> 00:04:08.490 align:middle line:84% wrung from a boiling kettle and studying staring eyes, 00:04:08.490 --> 00:04:11.640 align:middle line:90% eyes ringed with watching. 00:04:11.640 --> 00:04:15.420 align:middle line:84% A peach tree shedding yellowy leaves and a house 00:04:15.420 --> 00:04:17.880 align:middle line:90% full of men who keep off. 00:04:17.880 --> 00:04:21.149 align:middle line:84% So great a family of men and then this woman 00:04:21.149 --> 00:04:26.190 align:middle line:84% who wanted her gone yet stayed by her, watched over her. 00:04:26.190 --> 00:04:30.090 align:middle line:84% But this girl is expert in overhearing. 00:04:30.090 --> 00:04:32.820 align:middle line:84% And one word leaps off the window panes 00:04:32.820 --> 00:04:36.120 align:middle line:84% like the crack of dawn, the translation 00:04:36.120 --> 00:04:38.970 align:middle line:90% of the bubble of two rivers. 00:04:38.970 --> 00:04:42.030 align:middle line:84% What does this girl with her little family 00:04:42.030 --> 00:04:46.020 align:middle line:90% quarrel know about arsenals? 00:04:46.020 --> 00:04:48.870 align:middle line:84% Everything she knows is wrapped up in her leg 00:04:48.870 --> 00:04:52.590 align:middle line:84% without which she won't get past Virginia, though she's 00:04:52.590 --> 00:04:55.440 align:middle line:90% running north. 00:04:55.440 --> 00:04:59.100 align:middle line:84% Whatever gave the girl the idea you could run away 00:04:59.100 --> 00:05:03.130 align:middle line:84% from a family quarrel, displace yourself 00:05:03.130 --> 00:05:06.160 align:middle line:90% when nothing else would change. 00:05:06.160 --> 00:05:08.350 align:middle line:90% It wasn't books. 00:05:08.350 --> 00:05:17.650 align:middle line:84% It was half overheard, a wisp of talk, scape, flight, free soil, 00:05:17.650 --> 00:05:21.190 align:middle line:90% softening past her shoulder. 00:05:21.190 --> 00:05:23.920 align:middle line:84% She has never dreamed of arsenals, 00:05:23.920 --> 00:05:27.760 align:middle line:84% though she's a good rifle shot, taken at 10 by her brothers 00:05:27.760 --> 00:05:28.900 align:middle line:90% hunting. 00:05:28.900 --> 00:05:32.080 align:middle line:84% And though they've climbed her over and over, 00:05:32.080 --> 00:05:35.890 align:middle line:84% leaving their wet clots in her sheets on her new 00:05:35.890 --> 00:05:40.120 align:middle line:84% started maiden hair, she has never reached for a gun 00:05:40.120 --> 00:05:43.540 align:middle line:84% to hold them off, for guns are the language 00:05:43.540 --> 00:05:46.360 align:middle line:90% of the strong to the weak. 00:05:46.360 --> 00:05:50.170 align:middle line:84% How many squirrels have crashed between her sights? 00:05:50.170 --> 00:05:54.250 align:middle line:84% What vertebrae crack did her fingers signal? 00:05:54.250 --> 00:05:59.050 align:middle line:84% What wings staggered through the bowels whose eyes ringed 00:05:59.050 --> 00:06:04.990 align:middle line:90% and treed has she eyed as prey? 00:06:04.990 --> 00:06:10.540 align:middle line:84% There is a strategy of mass flight, a strategy of arming, 00:06:10.540 --> 00:06:14.530 align:middle line:84% questions of how, of when, of where. 00:06:14.530 --> 00:06:16.960 align:middle line:84% The arguments soak through the walls 00:06:16.960 --> 00:06:19.120 align:middle line:84% of the house full of men, where running 00:06:19.120 --> 00:06:22.795 align:middle line:84% from home the white girl lies in her trouble. 00:06:22.795 --> 00:06:25.360 align:middle line:90% 00:06:25.360 --> 00:06:30.040 align:middle line:84% There are things overheard and things unworded, never sung 00:06:30.040 --> 00:06:33.790 align:middle line:84% or pictured, things that happen silently. 00:06:33.790 --> 00:06:37.810 align:middle line:84% As the peach trees galactic blossoms open in mist, 00:06:37.810 --> 00:06:41.050 align:middle line:84% the frost star hangs in the stubble. 00:06:41.050 --> 00:06:46.180 align:middle line:84% The decanter of moonlight pours its mournless liquid down 00:06:46.180 --> 00:06:49.750 align:middle line:90% steadily on the solstice fields. 00:06:49.750 --> 00:06:54.310 align:middle line:84% The cotton swells in its bowl and you feel yourself engorged, 00:06:54.310 --> 00:06:55.570 align:middle line:90% unnamable. 00:06:55.570 --> 00:06:59.110 align:middle line:84% You yourself feel encased and picked open, 00:06:59.110 --> 00:07:02.980 align:middle line:90% you feel yourself unenvisaged. 00:07:02.980 --> 00:07:06.730 align:middle line:84% There is no quarrel possible in this silence. 00:07:06.730 --> 00:07:10.720 align:middle line:84% You stop yourself listening for a word that will not be spoken, 00:07:10.720 --> 00:07:14.410 align:middle line:84% listening instead to the overheard fragments phrases 00:07:14.410 --> 00:07:20.590 align:middle line:84% melting on air, no more, many thousands go. 00:07:20.590 --> 00:07:24.130 align:middle line:84% And you know they are leaving as fast as they can. 00:07:24.130 --> 00:07:29.110 align:middle line:84% You whose child's eye followed each face wondering not how 00:07:29.110 --> 00:07:31.300 align:middle line:90% could they leave, but when. 00:07:31.300 --> 00:07:34.210 align:middle line:84% You knew they would leave, and so could 00:07:34.210 --> 00:07:36.190 align:middle line:90% you, but not with them. 00:07:36.190 --> 00:07:40.270 align:middle line:84% You were not their child, they had their own children. 00:07:40.270 --> 00:07:42.430 align:middle line:84% You could leave the house where you 00:07:42.430 --> 00:07:46.180 align:middle line:84% were daughter, sister, prey, picked open 00:07:46.180 --> 00:07:48.130 align:middle line:90% and left to silence. 00:07:48.130 --> 00:07:52.240 align:middle line:90% You could leave alone. 00:07:52.240 --> 00:07:55.930 align:middle line:84% This would be my scenario, of course, 00:07:55.930 --> 00:08:00.400 align:middle line:84% that the white girl understands what I understand and more, 00:08:00.400 --> 00:08:04.330 align:middle line:84% that the leg torn in flight had not betrayed her, 00:08:04.330 --> 00:08:07.090 align:middle line:84% had brought her to another point of struggle, 00:08:07.090 --> 00:08:10.510 align:middle line:84% that when she takes her place she is clear in mind 00:08:10.510 --> 00:08:14.680 align:middle line:84% and her anger true with the training of her hand and eye, 00:08:14.680 --> 00:08:19.000 align:middle line:84% her leg cured on the porch of history ready for more 00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:21.970 align:middle line:90% than solitary defiance. 00:08:21.970 --> 00:08:26.260 align:middle line:84% But when the General passes through in her blazing head 00:08:26.260 --> 00:08:29.890 align:middle line:84% rag, this girl knows her for Moses, 00:08:29.890 --> 00:08:33.460 align:middle line:84% pleads to stand with the others in the shortened light, 00:08:33.460 --> 00:08:37.630 align:middle line:84% accepts the scrutiny, the still black gaze, 00:08:37.630 --> 00:08:42.730 align:middle line:84% but Moses passes and has gone to her business elsewhere leaving 00:08:42.730 --> 00:08:46.990 align:middle line:84% the men to theirs, the girl to her own. 00:08:46.990 --> 00:08:50.140 align:middle line:84% But who would she take as leader? 00:08:50.140 --> 00:08:52.660 align:middle line:90% Would she fade into the woods? 00:08:52.660 --> 00:08:59.920 align:middle line:84% Will she die in an indefensible position, a miscarried raid? 00:08:59.920 --> 00:09:02.980 align:middle line:84% Does she lose the family face at last? 00:09:02.980 --> 00:09:05.770 align:middle line:84% Pressed into a gully above two rivers, 00:09:05.770 --> 00:09:10.870 align:middle line:84% does Shenandoah or Potomac carry her north or south? 00:09:10.870 --> 00:09:15.640 align:middle line:84% Will she wake in the mining camps to stoke the stoves 00:09:15.640 --> 00:09:19.810 align:middle line:84% and sleep at night with her rifle blue and loyal 00:09:19.810 --> 00:09:22.030 align:middle line:90% under her hand? 00:09:22.030 --> 00:09:25.570 align:middle line:84% Does she ever forget how they left? 00:09:25.570 --> 00:09:28.860 align:middle line:90% How they taught her, leaving? 00:09:28.860 --> 00:09:30.000 align:middle line:90%