WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.510 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.510 --> 00:00:04.080 align:middle line:84% So I'm going to read two poems from the section 00:00:04.080 --> 00:00:05.850 align:middle line:90% that I wrote during COVID. 00:00:05.850 --> 00:00:09.960 align:middle line:84% And I was reading the book of Revelation a lot, 00:00:09.960 --> 00:00:12.960 align:middle line:90% thinking about apocalypse. 00:00:12.960 --> 00:00:15.780 align:middle line:84% And so this has some references to that. 00:00:15.780 --> 00:00:17.110 align:middle line:90% These two poems do. 00:00:17.110 --> 00:00:19.860 align:middle line:84% And also, I wanted to do a shout-out to my friend David 00:00:19.860 --> 00:00:21.990 align:middle line:90% John Robson, who-- 00:00:21.990 --> 00:00:24.360 align:middle line:90% I asked him if I could-- 00:00:24.360 --> 00:00:27.870 align:middle line:84% he wrote a great little phrase in an email. 00:00:27.870 --> 00:00:28.603 align:middle line:90% And I said-- 00:00:28.603 --> 00:00:31.020 align:middle line:84% I thought, well, either I'm going to just steal it and not 00:00:31.020 --> 00:00:36.210 align:middle line:84% tell him, or I'm going to tell him and then steal it. 00:00:36.210 --> 00:00:40.770 align:middle line:84% So I told him, and he said I could steal it. 00:00:40.770 --> 00:00:46.020 align:middle line:84% The phrase is "the fabled silicon mind meld." 00:00:46.020 --> 00:00:48.540 align:middle line:84% And so, if you write poetry, you know 00:00:48.540 --> 00:00:52.290 align:middle line:84% that you're always listening for great phrases 00:00:52.290 --> 00:00:54.270 align:middle line:90% that people say by accident. 00:00:54.270 --> 00:00:56.250 align:middle line:90% And they don't really need them. 00:00:56.250 --> 00:00:57.960 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:57.960 --> 00:01:00.700 align:middle line:90% You can just usually take them. 00:01:00.700 --> 00:01:02.950 align:middle line:84% But I thought, that was in writing, 00:01:02.950 --> 00:01:05.410 align:middle line:90% and David was very generous. 00:01:05.410 --> 00:01:08.320 align:middle line:90% "A Ragged White Moth Passes By" 00:01:08.320 --> 00:01:10.270 align:middle line:84% So we all lived through COVID and I 00:01:10.270 --> 00:01:14.650 align:middle line:84% was trying to get at an experience of the moth that-- 00:01:14.650 --> 00:01:21.140 align:middle line:90% the moth of history that flies. 00:01:21.140 --> 00:01:22.970 align:middle line:84% --"had no first line and the epic 00:01:22.970 --> 00:01:25.430 align:middle line:84% was useless except for one elderly moth 00:01:25.430 --> 00:01:27.920 align:middle line:84% flying through as the spirit of history. 00:01:27.920 --> 00:01:31.460 align:middle line:84% The sickness was also flying though it was not alive. 00:01:31.460 --> 00:01:32.900 align:middle line:90% When would they meet? 00:01:32.900 --> 00:01:34.040 align:middle line:90% And when 00:01:34.040 --> 00:01:39.260 align:middle line:84% we thought of the world soul, how could distances apply? 00:01:39.260 --> 00:01:41.840 align:middle line:84% Past papered windows of locked-up cafés, 00:01:41.840 --> 00:01:45.470 align:middle line:84% the quartz in the desert and the fabled silicon mind meld, 00:01:45.470 --> 00:01:47.450 align:middle line:90% past the uninsured-- 00:01:47.450 --> 00:01:50.150 align:middle line:84% Mosses on buildings looked like themselves, 00:01:50.150 --> 00:01:53.930 align:middle line:84% crowded but separate, social cell walls and stems-- 00:01:53.930 --> 00:01:57.380 align:middle line:84% each with a certain commitment to survive. 00:01:57.380 --> 00:02:00.650 align:middle line:84% I, a poet on the island of a thought, with love nearby, 00:02:00.650 --> 00:02:02.600 align:middle line:90% lit a candle through spring. 00:02:02.600 --> 00:02:03.590 align:middle line:90% On and on 00:02:03.590 --> 00:02:05.210 align:middle line:90% the little beasts visited. 00:02:05.210 --> 00:02:05.960 align:middle line:90% No 00:02:05.960 --> 00:02:07.310 align:middle line:90% 666 for them. 00:02:07.310 --> 00:02:11.570 align:middle line:84% The rat and bacteria and sparrow's gold corona. 00:02:11.570 --> 00:02:13.940 align:middle line:84% The ragged white moth of history flew 00:02:13.940 --> 00:02:17.180 align:middle line:84% over landfills and anti-sorrow of the flat few, 00:02:17.180 --> 00:02:21.470 align:middle line:84% 2 wings, 6 legs, or 4 wings depending, 00:02:21.470 --> 00:02:24.530 align:middle line:84% flew with the m of our minds or the missing ones, 00:02:24.530 --> 00:02:28.040 align:middle line:84% its faraway moth-babies in the drawers quietly eating 00:02:28.040 --> 00:02:29.345 align:middle line:90% the sweaters of our mothers. 00:02:29.345 --> 00:02:32.300 align:middle line:90% 00:02:32.300 --> 00:02:34.190 align:middle line:84% The jeweled threads of the protein 00:02:34.190 --> 00:02:37.910 align:middle line:84% wove the sickness looking like life or death, 00:02:37.910 --> 00:02:39.680 align:middle line:90% though truly it was neither 00:02:39.680 --> 00:02:41.990 align:middle line:84% And parallel to that, in the green springing 00:02:41.990 --> 00:02:44.930 align:middle line:84% hills the grace-footed dark-haired spirit 00:02:44.930 --> 00:02:46.480 align:middle line:90% of the will-not-end--" 00:02:46.480 --> 00:02:47.000 align:middle line:90%