WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.912 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.912 --> 00:00:03.120 align:middle line:84% Then I thought I would try to write some short poems. 00:00:03.120 --> 00:00:06.150 align:middle line:90% 00:00:06.150 --> 00:00:08.550 align:middle line:84% And being completely unchecked and unbridled, 00:00:08.550 --> 00:00:10.140 align:middle line:90% I wrote 50 of the mothers. 00:00:10.140 --> 00:00:10.960 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:00:10.960 --> 00:00:12.160 align:middle line:90% 00:00:12.160 --> 00:00:16.860 align:middle line:84% They're in a book called China Trace, 00:00:16.860 --> 00:00:19.980 align:middle line:84% and I'd like to read 10 or 12 of them. 00:00:19.980 --> 00:00:27.540 align:middle line:84% They're all 12 lines or less for two reasons. 00:00:27.540 --> 00:00:30.050 align:middle line:84% One, because the first one I wrote was 12 lines 00:00:30.050 --> 00:00:31.340 align:middle line:90% and I said no more. 00:00:31.340 --> 00:00:34.310 align:middle line:84% And the second reason is because Ezra Pound once said, 00:00:34.310 --> 00:00:37.385 align:middle line:90% as I've told people constantly. 00:00:37.385 --> 00:00:41.990 align:middle line:84% [LAUGHS] I keep repeating this story that the Chinese once 00:00:41.990 --> 00:00:44.840 align:middle line:84% said, if you can't say what you have to say in 12 lines 00:00:44.840 --> 00:00:47.690 align:middle line:84% you better change your profession. 00:00:47.690 --> 00:00:49.280 align:middle line:90% That's a great half truth. 00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:51.380 align:middle line:90% But anyhow. 00:00:51.380 --> 00:00:54.290 align:middle line:90% 00:00:54.290 --> 00:00:55.880 align:middle line:84% First one I'd like to read is called 00:00:55.880 --> 00:00:58.040 align:middle line:84% "Snow," something of which I'm sure you're all 00:00:58.040 --> 00:01:01.425 align:middle line:90% very familiar with around here. 00:01:01.425 --> 00:01:03.800 align:middle line:84% But I wrote it in August, which seemed the only fair time 00:01:03.800 --> 00:01:05.675 align:middle line:84% to write a poem called "Snow," so it was just 00:01:05.675 --> 00:01:08.708 align:middle line:90% as hot then as it is here now. 00:01:08.708 --> 00:01:11.000 align:middle line:84% In fact, it hasn't anything whatsoever to do with snow. 00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:16.070 align:middle line:84% It has to do with salvation, and regeneration, and-- 00:01:16.070 --> 00:01:19.308 align:middle line:90% 00:01:19.308 --> 00:01:20.600 align:middle line:90% I can never remember that word. 00:01:20.600 --> 00:01:21.350 align:middle line:90% Resurrection. 00:01:21.350 --> 00:01:21.930 align:middle line:90% Resurrection. 00:01:21.930 --> 00:01:22.430 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:01:22.430 --> 00:01:23.727 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:01:23.727 --> 00:01:25.810 align:middle line:84% That's the third time today I've forgotten a word. 00:01:25.810 --> 00:01:28.850 align:middle line:84% There is something going on, don't you know. 00:01:28.850 --> 00:01:29.350 align:middle line:90% Jesus. 00:01:29.350 --> 00:01:33.800 align:middle line:90% 00:01:33.800 --> 00:01:38.906 align:middle line:84% And the impossibility of that is the point of the whole book. 00:01:38.906 --> 00:01:39.830 align:middle line:90% "Snow." 00:01:39.830 --> 00:01:46.350 align:middle line:84% "If we, as we are, are dust, and dust, as it will, rises, 00:01:46.350 --> 00:01:48.050 align:middle line:90% then we will rise. 00:01:48.050 --> 00:01:51.020 align:middle line:84% And we congregate in the wind, in the cloud, 00:01:51.020 --> 00:01:52.940 align:middle line:90% and be their issue. 00:01:52.940 --> 00:01:55.520 align:middle line:84% Things in a fall, in a world of fall, 00:01:55.520 --> 00:01:57.290 align:middle line:84% and slip through the spiked branches 00:01:57.290 --> 00:01:59.810 align:middle line:84% and snapped joints of the evergreens. 00:01:59.810 --> 00:02:04.090 align:middle line:84% White ants, white ants and the little ribs." 00:02:04.090 --> 00:02:05.000 align:middle line:90%