WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.950 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.950 --> 00:00:06.600 align:middle line:84% Often I feel, especially when I'm alone, 00:00:06.600 --> 00:00:11.070 align:middle line:84% the presence of silence in the world 00:00:11.070 --> 00:00:14.670 align:middle line:84% and in my life as something that I'm seriously 00:00:14.670 --> 00:00:17.100 align:middle line:90% negotiating with for the poem. 00:00:17.100 --> 00:00:22.470 align:middle line:84% And sometimes it's the green world, 00:00:22.470 --> 00:00:28.980 align:middle line:84% and sometimes it's a pain or speechlessness. 00:00:28.980 --> 00:00:33.960 align:middle line:84% And sometimes it's the silence of pure fact, scientific fact. 00:00:33.960 --> 00:00:41.160 align:middle line:84% Or whatever it is, it really feels very powerful. 00:00:41.160 --> 00:00:45.000 align:middle line:84% And on this particular day when this poem began, 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:48.150 align:middle line:84% I was alone in my house when I was in Arcata. 00:00:48.150 --> 00:00:51.750 align:middle line:84% And I was watching a bird in the yard. 00:00:51.750 --> 00:00:55.020 align:middle line:84% And birds tend to do this often, this thing which 00:00:55.020 --> 00:00:59.910 align:middle line:84% is called anting, which is they originally are intending 00:00:59.910 --> 00:01:04.379 align:middle line:84% to clean themselves by taking dust up into their feathers 00:01:04.379 --> 00:01:08.010 align:middle line:84% to clean themselves and then let it go. 00:01:08.010 --> 00:01:11.370 align:middle line:84% And sometimes they will-- when they can't really find dust, 00:01:11.370 --> 00:01:15.210 align:middle line:84% they will take ants up into their feathers. 00:01:15.210 --> 00:01:19.200 align:middle line:84% And it's quite a good contract between the ants and the birds. 00:01:19.200 --> 00:01:22.710 align:middle line:84% And sometimes they will be mistaken and take other things. 00:01:22.710 --> 00:01:28.530 align:middle line:84% I read all this in a book, a wonderful 19th century 00:01:28.530 --> 00:01:31.830 align:middle line:84% book about birds and birdsong, which compared the-- 00:01:31.830 --> 00:01:34.470 align:middle line:84% assured me that the song of the Western Meadowlark 00:01:34.470 --> 00:01:38.040 align:middle line:84% was the opening chords of La traviata. 00:01:38.040 --> 00:01:40.110 align:middle line:84% I believed everything in the book after that. 00:01:40.110 --> 00:01:42.978 align:middle line:90% 00:01:42.978 --> 00:01:44.735 align:middle line:84% This is a poem in three sections. 00:01:44.735 --> 00:01:49.140 align:middle line:90% 00:01:49.140 --> 00:01:52.070 align:middle line:84% The man mentioned in the second section, Werner Herzog, 00:01:52.070 --> 00:01:53.020 align:middle line:90% is a filmmaker. 00:01:53.020 --> 00:01:54.770 align:middle line:84% I think you're probably familiar with him. 00:01:54.770 --> 00:02:01.330 align:middle line:90% 00:02:01.330 --> 00:02:02.395 align:middle line:90% "The Age of Reason." 00:02:02.395 --> 00:02:06.640 align:middle line:90% 00:02:06.640 --> 00:02:07.140 align:middle line:90% One. 00:02:07.140 --> 00:02:10.800 align:middle line:90% 00:02:10.800 --> 00:02:18.210 align:middle line:84% The anxious bird in the lush spring green is anting. 00:02:18.210 --> 00:02:22.920 align:middle line:84% which means in my orchard, he has opened his wings 00:02:22.920 --> 00:02:26.580 align:middle line:84% over a furious anthill and will take up 00:02:26.580 --> 00:02:30.690 align:middle line:84% into the delicate ridges of quince yellow feathers 00:02:30.690 --> 00:02:34.080 align:middle line:84% a number of tiny, angry creatures 00:02:34.080 --> 00:02:39.090 align:middle line:84% that will inhabit him, bewildered no doubt, traveling 00:02:39.090 --> 00:02:45.240 align:middle line:84% deep into the air on this feathery planet new life. 00:02:45.240 --> 00:02:47.940 align:middle line:90% We don't know why they do it. 00:02:47.940 --> 00:02:50.760 align:middle line:84% At times they'll take on almost anything that 00:02:50.760 --> 00:02:55.170 align:middle line:84% burns, spreading their wings over coals, over cigarette 00:02:55.170 --> 00:03:02.040 align:middle line:84% butts, even mistakenly on bits of broken glass. 00:03:02.040 --> 00:03:04.530 align:middle line:84% Meanwhile, the light keeps stroking them 00:03:04.530 --> 00:03:06.780 align:middle line:90% as if it were love. 00:03:06.780 --> 00:03:10.230 align:middle line:84% The garden continues its work all around them, 00:03:10.230 --> 00:03:14.550 align:middle line:84% the gradual openings that stand for death. 00:03:14.550 --> 00:03:17.910 align:middle line:84% Under the plastic ground cover, the human garden 00:03:17.910 --> 00:03:24.390 align:middle line:84% grows, help sticks and knots, row after row. 00:03:24.390 --> 00:03:28.860 align:middle line:84% Who wouldn't want to take into the self something that 00:03:28.860 --> 00:03:34.275 align:middle line:84% burns, or cuts, or wanders lost over the body? 00:03:34.275 --> 00:03:38.170 align:middle line:90% 00:03:38.170 --> 00:03:40.840 align:middle line:90% Two. 00:03:40.840 --> 00:03:44.710 align:middle line:84% At the end of Werner Herzog's Woyzeck, 00:03:44.710 --> 00:03:47.740 align:middle line:84% after the hero whom we love, who is mad, 00:03:47.740 --> 00:03:52.390 align:middle line:84% has murdered the world, the young woman who is his wife, 00:03:52.390 --> 00:03:56.990 align:middle line:84% and loved her, and covered himself with blood, 00:03:56.990 --> 00:04:00.880 align:middle line:84% he grows frightened by how quickly she softens and takes 00:04:00.880 --> 00:04:04.060 align:middle line:90% on the shape of the soil. 00:04:04.060 --> 00:04:06.370 align:middle line:84% In the moonlight, he throws his knife 00:04:06.370 --> 00:04:09.850 align:middle line:84% into the wide river flowing beside them, 00:04:09.850 --> 00:04:12.850 align:middle line:84% but doesn't think it has reached deep enough, 00:04:12.850 --> 00:04:16.670 align:middle line:90% so goes in after it himself. 00:04:16.670 --> 00:04:21.850 align:middle line:84% White as a knife, he goes in after it completely. 00:04:21.850 --> 00:04:23.830 align:middle line:90% The trees are green. 00:04:23.830 --> 00:04:26.290 align:middle line:90% The earth is green. 00:04:26.290 --> 00:04:29.320 align:middle line:90% The light is sick with green. 00:04:29.320 --> 00:04:35.410 align:middle line:84% Now that he's gone, the woman is a tiny gap in green. 00:04:35.410 --> 00:04:40.730 align:middle line:84% Next day in slow motion, the undertakers and philosophers, 00:04:40.730 --> 00:04:43.720 align:middle line:84% it is the age of reason, wander through 00:04:43.720 --> 00:04:47.080 align:middle line:84% the tall and glossy ferns and grasses 00:04:47.080 --> 00:04:49.630 align:middle line:90% looking for the instrument. 00:04:49.630 --> 00:04:50.800 align:middle line:90% It's spring. 00:04:50.800 --> 00:04:52.750 align:middle line:90% The air is gold. 00:04:52.750 --> 00:04:55.420 align:middle line:84% Every now and then, they lift the white sheet 00:04:55.420 --> 00:04:58.690 align:middle line:84% they have laid to see what death is. 00:04:58.690 --> 00:05:00.760 align:middle line:90% They are meticulous. 00:05:00.760 --> 00:05:02.530 align:middle line:90% The day is everything they have. 00:05:02.530 --> 00:05:06.930 align:middle line:90% 00:05:06.930 --> 00:05:09.710 align:middle line:90% Three. 00:05:09.710 --> 00:05:13.830 align:middle line:90% How far is true enough? 00:05:13.830 --> 00:05:19.460 align:middle line:84% How far into the earth can vision go and still be love? 00:05:19.460 --> 00:05:23.180 align:middle line:84% Isn't the honesty of things where they resist, 00:05:23.180 --> 00:05:25.670 align:middle line:84% where only the wind can bend them back, 00:05:25.670 --> 00:05:28.880 align:middle line:84% the real weather, not our desire, hissing, 00:05:28.880 --> 00:05:31.700 align:middle line:84% tell me your parts that I may understand 00:05:31.700 --> 00:05:35.180 align:middle line:84% your body, your story, which is why 00:05:35.180 --> 00:05:38.540 align:middle line:84% we have characters and the knife of a plot 00:05:38.540 --> 00:05:41.540 align:middle line:90% to wade through this current. 00:05:41.540 --> 00:05:46.340 align:middle line:84% Now it blossoms back to back through the orchard, 00:05:46.340 --> 00:05:49.910 align:middle line:90% a surf of tenderness. 00:05:49.910 --> 00:05:52.940 align:middle line:84% There is no deep enough, for what 00:05:52.940 --> 00:05:57.830 align:middle line:84% we want to take inside of us, whole orchard, color, name, 00:05:57.830 --> 00:06:02.840 align:middle line:84% scent, symbol, raw pale blossoms, wet black arms, 00:06:02.840 --> 00:06:05.350 align:middle line:90% there is no deep enough." 00:06:05.350 --> 00:06:08.000 align:middle line:90%