It's difficult because a great many studies
have shown that you can measure how much you
know about a subject, by how much vocabulary you have for it.
When I was growing up, I used to say the Eskimos had
400 words for ice and snow.
And a while ago, I read that they had only 136 words
and I got talking to a scholar and he gave me
a list of the vocabulary of the Eskimos for snow and ice
and it was 36.
Still it shows a real knowledge of ice and snow.
When you think of the fact that we have almost no language
for love, maybe six words.
So it makes you wonder, makes me wonder.
I was married to a woman named Michiko.
Michiko Nogami, who died.
This is written about a villa we lived on a Greek mountain.
All falling down 19th century building
and it starts out with the same problem with language,
trying to find an equivalent to what you're talking about.
It was extremely hard for me to try
to say what I wanted to say in this poem.
So it starts out talking about--
you have to come at it sideways, finding something.
I say moon is horses in the tempered dark
because horse is the closest I can get to it.
I sit on the terrace of this warm villa
the King's calligrapher built on the mountain that looks down
on a blue sea, and the small white ferry that crosses slowly
to the next island, each known.
Michiko is dying in the house behind me,
the long windows open, so I can hear
the faint sound she will make when
she wants watermelon to suck.
Or so I can take her to the bucket
in the corner of the high ceilinged room which
is the best we can do for chamber pot.
She will lean against my leg as she sits,
so as not to fall over in her weakness.
How strange and fine to get so near to it.
The arches of her feet are like voices of children
calling in the grove of lemon trees,
where my heart is as helpless as crushed birds.
For me, the point is not to say pity me,
that's a sad thing that happened.
When I try to do in the poem is trying
to say it was wonderful to be there, to be that close to her,
to take care of her body at its final stages,
to pass across the border of decorum or politeness
or courtesy.
And you enter an intimacy that's--
is a blessing.
I don't mean it was not terrible and what we call heartbreaking,
but that's not the point.
The point is something valuable was there
and you miss it if you just think about how long I
cried afterwards.