WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.210 align:middle line:84%
For a long time, I've
thought of this moment

00:00:03.210 --> 00:00:07.140 align:middle line:84%
and I don't know how to
do this moral number.

00:00:07.140 --> 00:00:11.970 align:middle line:84%
Any moral number I've got seems
to be every moral person's

00:00:11.970 --> 00:00:14.020 align:middle line:90%
moral number.

00:00:14.020 --> 00:00:17.620 align:middle line:84%
The poetry of witnesses
for whom that the people

00:00:17.620 --> 00:00:22.700 align:middle line:84%
who we stick little
things in people's eyes

00:00:22.700 --> 00:00:25.265 align:middle line:84%
and turn them around into the
center of the brains or they

00:00:25.265 --> 00:00:26.870 align:middle line:90%
the one reading the poems.

00:00:26.870 --> 00:00:29.930 align:middle line:84%
Or is it me feeling good about
looking at it because I'm

00:00:29.930 --> 00:00:31.820 align:middle line:90%
in a position of superiority.

00:00:31.820 --> 00:00:37.010 align:middle line:84%
So I feel a strange
mixture in writing a poem

00:00:37.010 --> 00:00:41.150 align:middle line:84%
to where I have a superior
moral understanding.

00:00:41.150 --> 00:00:44.422 align:middle line:90%


00:00:44.422 --> 00:00:46.130 align:middle line:84%
But this is something
that has plagued me

00:00:46.130 --> 00:00:48.170 align:middle line:90%
for a long time, two images.

00:00:48.170 --> 00:00:52.670 align:middle line:84%
A childhood friend of
mine, Billy Don Bolden when

00:00:52.670 --> 00:00:59.790 align:middle line:84%
he was 15 years old was caught
in a sexual act out of the woods

00:00:59.790 --> 00:01:03.640 align:middle line:84%
by a white game
warden in Alabama.

00:01:03.640 --> 00:01:08.470 align:middle line:84%
And some scuffle ensued in
which the game warden was killed

00:01:08.470 --> 00:01:13.810 align:middle line:84%
and Billy Don Bolden
tried to get away

00:01:13.810 --> 00:01:16.460 align:middle line:90%
in the game warden's car.

00:01:16.460 --> 00:01:20.270 align:middle line:84%
And was convicted of
a first degree murder

00:01:20.270 --> 00:01:22.070 align:middle line:84%
and was about to
be tried for rape

00:01:22.070 --> 00:01:24.290 align:middle line:84%
and he did not do
the death penalty.

00:01:24.290 --> 00:01:27.710 align:middle line:84%
And I imagine he
did kill the man

00:01:27.710 --> 00:01:29.970 align:middle line:84%
and I can imagine
also the difficulty

00:01:29.970 --> 00:01:35.070 align:middle line:84%
that peculiar situation, I knew
the guy and he's not a killer.

00:01:35.070 --> 00:01:37.950 align:middle line:84%
He's a guy who's probably
glad to be having

00:01:37.950 --> 00:01:40.740 align:middle line:84%
sex out in the woods,
but he certainly did not

00:01:40.740 --> 00:01:43.460 align:middle line:90%
mean to get into a scuffle.

00:01:43.460 --> 00:01:47.960 align:middle line:84%
And it's plagued me all
my life his position,

00:01:47.960 --> 00:01:50.980 align:middle line:90%
he's finally out of jail now.

00:01:50.980 --> 00:01:53.080 align:middle line:84%
But I remembered
one other thing,

00:01:53.080 --> 00:01:55.990 align:middle line:84%
which was that my mother used
to be in the Ladies' Home

00:01:55.990 --> 00:01:59.280 align:middle line:90%
Missionary Society.

00:01:59.280 --> 00:02:04.870 align:middle line:84%
And they were always
feeling good about being--

00:02:04.870 --> 00:02:09.889 align:middle line:84%
I think missionaries and helping
the poor people in Africa.

00:02:09.889 --> 00:02:13.220 align:middle line:84%
And I remember being tired
and being outside and playing

00:02:13.220 --> 00:02:19.321 align:middle line:84%
and coming into the house, when
a slide show of a missionary's--

00:02:19.321 --> 00:02:21.020 align:middle line:90%
[AUDIO OUT]

00:02:21.020 --> 00:02:24.410 align:middle line:84%
When I get down to the bottom
of things, it was a dark green,

00:02:24.410 --> 00:02:27.650 align:middle line:84%
stiff billed
soldier's cap, stamped

00:02:27.650 --> 00:02:31.490 align:middle line:84%
with a white numerals of one
of the enigmatic insignia

00:02:31.490 --> 00:02:35.050 align:middle line:90%
of the Alabama National Guard.

00:02:35.050 --> 00:02:37.640 align:middle line:90%
Why keep it now?

00:02:37.640 --> 00:02:40.280 align:middle line:84%
The boy who wore it,
Billy Don Bolden,

00:02:40.280 --> 00:02:44.340 align:middle line:84%
has been a man out of
prison for a long time.

00:02:44.340 --> 00:02:47.100 align:middle line:84%
We used to play a
fast hide and seek

00:02:47.100 --> 00:02:49.290 align:middle line:84%
in the woods just
south of the house

00:02:49.290 --> 00:02:52.080 align:middle line:84%
where the Ladies' Home
Missionary Society sipped

00:02:52.080 --> 00:02:58.290 align:middle line:84%
iced tea, as they watched slides
of African children scrabbling

00:02:58.290 --> 00:03:03.130 align:middle line:84%
to scoop handfuls of
ants into their mouths.

00:03:03.130 --> 00:03:06.610 align:middle line:84%
Just once, I brought him,
thirsty, inside the house,

00:03:06.610 --> 00:03:10.090 align:middle line:84%
and the good ladies, taking in
the darkness of his nappy head,

00:03:10.090 --> 00:03:11.470 align:middle line:90%
looked so aghast.

00:03:11.470 --> 00:03:13.270 align:middle line:84%
You would have thought
one of the heathens

00:03:13.270 --> 00:03:16.690 align:middle line:84%
had stepped down naked from the
white bed sheet they were using

00:03:16.690 --> 00:03:19.840 align:middle line:84%
as a screen and now was
debating whether to eat

00:03:19.840 --> 00:03:21.685 align:middle line:90%
their earrings or their ears.

00:03:21.685 --> 00:03:24.490 align:middle line:90%


00:03:24.490 --> 00:03:29.280 align:middle line:84%
You know what it is
to be "it," don't you?

00:03:29.280 --> 00:03:32.400 align:middle line:84%
Since I drove up toward
a cemetery with a girl

00:03:32.400 --> 00:03:36.720 align:middle line:84%
and we lay down half
naked, and rose up naked,

00:03:36.720 --> 00:03:40.800 align:middle line:84%
with the horns blaring, and the
long row of headlights shining

00:03:40.800 --> 00:03:43.050 align:middle line:84%
in our eyes, I've studied
to memorize the ground

00:03:43.050 --> 00:03:43.920 align:middle line:90%
rules in the South.

00:03:43.920 --> 00:03:45.450 align:middle line:90%
One.

00:03:45.450 --> 00:03:48.050 align:middle line:90%
God's watching all the time.

00:03:48.050 --> 00:03:48.860 align:middle line:90%
Two.

00:03:48.860 --> 00:03:52.530 align:middle line:84%
Every cemetery
hides a church, it's

00:03:52.530 --> 00:03:56.310 align:middle line:84%
always the same with the
two naked bodies, one moment

00:03:56.310 --> 00:04:00.150 align:middle line:84%
alone in the darkness and
the next, two families in

00:04:00.150 --> 00:04:03.830 align:middle line:84%
convention at the
ten upturned toes.

00:04:03.830 --> 00:04:06.290 align:middle line:84%
Mothers, fathers,
grandparents, aunts, uncles,

00:04:06.290 --> 00:04:08.720 align:middle line:84%
infamous and demented
cousins, like patriots

00:04:08.720 --> 00:04:12.870 align:middle line:84%
are praising every possible
outcome of every possible war.

00:04:12.870 --> 00:04:15.720 align:middle line:84%
Or certain familiar verses
of the national anthem that

00:04:15.720 --> 00:04:19.800 align:middle line:84%
the singer cannot quite
bring to the tongue.

00:04:19.800 --> 00:04:22.790 align:middle line:84%
The time machine that changes
the ludicrously tragic

00:04:22.790 --> 00:04:27.410 align:middle line:84%
to the mildly preposterous
will arrive in 20 minutes.

00:04:27.410 --> 00:04:32.960 align:middle line:84%
If luck holds, no one mentions
marriage or pulls a gun.

00:04:32.960 --> 00:04:35.540 align:middle line:84%
But if you're 15 and Black
and a white game warden

00:04:35.540 --> 00:04:40.310 align:middle line:84%
comes on you with a white girl
in the woods in Alabama in 1964,

00:04:40.310 --> 00:04:44.020 align:middle line:84%
one of the things that
might happen is murder.

00:04:44.020 --> 00:04:46.510 align:middle line:84%
If the white man's dead and
you're caught in his car

00:04:46.510 --> 00:04:50.290 align:middle line:84%
with a gun, the jury
takes less than an hour

00:04:50.290 --> 00:04:53.980 align:middle line:84%
and you're building years,
lollygagging and jawing

00:04:53.980 --> 00:04:55.990 align:middle line:90%
over the cafe au lait

00:04:55.990 --> 00:04:59.350 align:middle line:84%
in one of the bistros
of Kilby Prison,

00:04:59.350 --> 00:05:01.720 align:middle line:84%
before the time machine
turns into a bus

00:05:01.720 --> 00:05:05.200 align:middle line:84%
and lets you off with the
night shift outside a laundry

00:05:05.200 --> 00:05:07.670 align:middle line:90%
in Montgomery.

00:05:07.670 --> 00:05:10.730 align:middle line:84%
Old friend, I think
of you running a brush

00:05:10.730 --> 00:05:14.920 align:middle line:84%
across some senator's
pajamas, then of the slide

00:05:14.920 --> 00:05:17.210 align:middle line:90%
kicking into the light.

00:05:17.210 --> 00:05:22.220 align:middle line:84%
It's somewhere in
the Congo circa 1959.

00:05:22.220 --> 00:05:26.030 align:middle line:84%
The ladies clicked their
dentures into smiles;

00:05:26.030 --> 00:05:28.670 align:middle line:90%
King hasn't marched yet.

00:05:28.670 --> 00:05:32.420 align:middle line:84%
We've just stumbled in
out of the sunshine,

00:05:32.420 --> 00:05:34.790 align:middle line:84%
it's that instant
when we're blind

00:05:34.790 --> 00:05:37.190 align:middle line:90%
and passing through the beam.

00:05:37.190 --> 00:05:41.360 align:middle line:84%
The feast of ants is
painted on your back,

00:05:41.360 --> 00:05:45.500 align:middle line:84%
it's like all the past
now, it's black and white.

00:05:45.500 --> 00:05:46.000 align:middle line:90%