WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.950 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.950 --> 00:00:03.570 align:middle line:90% One of the people-- 00:00:03.570 --> 00:00:05.550 align:middle line:84% I've been in love with several dead people. 00:00:05.550 --> 00:00:09.770 align:middle line:90% 00:00:09.770 --> 00:00:11.630 align:middle line:84% Crazy Horse Lakota I'm talking about. 00:00:11.630 --> 00:00:14.840 align:middle line:84% You know the great warrior Crazy Horse Lakota? 00:00:14.840 --> 00:00:18.890 align:middle line:90% Chief Tashunka Witco. 00:00:18.890 --> 00:00:19.790 align:middle line:90% Crazy about him. 00:00:19.790 --> 00:00:26.630 align:middle line:90% And David, the King of Israel. 00:00:26.630 --> 00:00:29.630 align:middle line:84% And I have a series of poems from the Book of David. 00:00:29.630 --> 00:00:32.330 align:middle line:84% They were written because I was riding in a car with a friend-- 00:00:32.330 --> 00:00:35.750 align:middle line:84% I have a friend who knows the Bible so well-- 00:00:35.750 --> 00:00:40.770 align:middle line:84% and I was saying, if David was so wonderful and so interesting, 00:00:40.770 --> 00:00:42.350 align:middle line:84% I wish there was a Book of David. 00:00:42.350 --> 00:00:44.142 align:middle line:84% She said, well, so why don't you write one? 00:00:44.142 --> 00:00:46.200 align:middle line:90% And something went ping. 00:00:46.200 --> 00:00:49.790 align:middle line:84% And so I have some poems from the Book of David. 00:00:49.790 --> 00:00:52.700 align:middle line:84% I read these poems in Jerusalem, do you believe that? 00:00:52.700 --> 00:00:55.520 align:middle line:84% And I thought people were going to stone me or something, 00:00:55.520 --> 00:00:56.960 align:middle line:90% but everybody liked it. 00:00:56.960 --> 00:01:00.680 align:middle line:90% 00:01:00.680 --> 00:01:02.600 align:middle line:90% In fact, you know what happened? 00:01:02.600 --> 00:01:04.640 align:middle line:84% They had-- and this was an international poetry 00:01:04.640 --> 00:01:05.810 align:middle line:90% conference-- 00:01:05.810 --> 00:01:10.550 align:middle line:84% and they had each of the featured poets read a selection 00:01:10.550 --> 00:01:12.320 align:middle line:84% from classic poetry and they gave me 00:01:12.320 --> 00:01:14.420 align:middle line:84% a Psalm of David's to read, though they 00:01:14.420 --> 00:01:16.760 align:middle line:90% didn't know about these poems. 00:01:16.760 --> 00:01:19.410 align:middle line:84% And when I finished it, people were saying, 00:01:19.410 --> 00:01:21.050 align:middle line:84% oh, that sounded just like scripture. 00:01:21.050 --> 00:01:22.770 align:middle line:90% That was so good. 00:01:22.770 --> 00:01:24.800 align:middle line:84% And I was thinking, now, that-- he's their boy. 00:01:24.800 --> 00:01:27.860 align:middle line:84% I mean, why do they think I wrote this? 00:01:27.860 --> 00:01:29.550 align:middle line:90% He is interesting. 00:01:29.550 --> 00:01:31.700 align:middle line:90% But anyway. 00:01:31.700 --> 00:01:34.160 align:middle line:84% I think David was very interesting because I think 00:01:34.160 --> 00:01:38.060 align:middle line:84% the questions David raises are the questions that certainly 00:01:38.060 --> 00:01:41.450 align:middle line:84% Americans ought to raise if they don't. 00:01:41.450 --> 00:01:43.610 align:middle line:84% And that is, what is the nature of man? 00:01:43.610 --> 00:01:46.283 align:middle line:90% What is the nature of what I am? 00:01:46.283 --> 00:01:48.950 align:middle line:84% I began to think about it-- when I have a very dear friend who's 00:01:48.950 --> 00:01:51.500 align:middle line:84% a novelist, Wayne Karlin is his name, 00:01:51.500 --> 00:01:53.000 align:middle line:90% I recommend his work to you. 00:01:53.000 --> 00:01:55.970 align:middle line:90% He's a wonderful novelist. 00:01:55.970 --> 00:01:57.680 align:middle line:90% He's a poet. 00:01:57.680 --> 00:01:59.930 align:middle line:84% I get annoyed because he writes better poems than I do 00:01:59.930 --> 00:02:00.770 align:middle line:90% and he's a novelist. 00:02:00.770 --> 00:02:02.270 align:middle line:90% He's not supposed to. 00:02:02.270 --> 00:02:06.320 align:middle line:90% And he is a Vietnam veteran. 00:02:06.320 --> 00:02:09.949 align:middle line:84% And when he thinks about-- he was a helicopter gunner-- 00:02:09.949 --> 00:02:12.110 align:middle line:90% and what he thinks about-- 00:02:12.110 --> 00:02:14.660 align:middle line:90% what is he? 00:02:14.660 --> 00:02:17.450 align:middle line:84% And then I think about David who was, as the Bible says, 00:02:17.450 --> 00:02:20.540 align:middle line:90% a man after God's own heart. 00:02:20.540 --> 00:02:24.620 align:middle line:84% And he was a warrior, a killer, and a poet, 00:02:24.620 --> 00:02:27.440 align:middle line:90% and a dancer, and a singer. 00:02:27.440 --> 00:02:31.760 align:middle line:84% What is the nature of what we are-- 00:02:31.760 --> 00:02:35.780 align:middle line:84% which gets down to the questions that aren't always asked. 00:02:35.780 --> 00:02:37.520 align:middle line:90% I have to around thinking. 00:02:37.520 --> 00:02:38.675 align:middle line:90% What am I? 00:02:38.675 --> 00:02:40.700 align:middle line:90% What are we, really? 00:02:40.700 --> 00:02:42.290 align:middle line:90% Where do we come from? 00:02:42.290 --> 00:02:44.330 align:middle line:90% Where are we going? 00:02:44.330 --> 00:02:47.225 align:middle line:84% Anyway, I'd like to read a few David poems. 00:02:47.225 --> 00:02:49.880 align:middle line:90% 00:02:49.880 --> 00:02:51.020 align:middle line:90% Oh, let's see. 00:02:51.020 --> 00:02:53.630 align:middle line:90% "Son of Jesse." 00:02:53.630 --> 00:02:58.500 align:middle line:84% Nowhere in the Bible is David's mother mentioned. 00:02:58.500 --> 00:03:00.240 align:middle line:90% "Son of Jesse." 00:03:00.240 --> 00:03:06.350 align:middle line:84% "My father had eight sons, seven for keeping. 00:03:06.350 --> 00:03:11.510 align:middle line:84% Somewhere, there is a chronicle naming my mother. 00:03:11.510 --> 00:03:18.260 align:middle line:84% How could I be woman true, dancing in a house of men? 00:03:18.260 --> 00:03:22.160 align:middle line:84% Even when I gathered foreign wives and concubines, 00:03:22.160 --> 00:03:25.430 align:middle line:84% I would tend them as I tended sheep. 00:03:25.430 --> 00:03:29.630 align:middle line:84% But when I ripped my robe, and wailed, and wept upon the Earth, 00:03:29.630 --> 00:03:33.650 align:middle line:84% I was grieving for men and I knew it: 00:03:33.650 --> 00:03:40.500 align:middle line:84% for my Lord, my brothers, fathers, sons." 00:03:40.500 --> 00:03:41.000 align:middle line:90%