WEBVTT

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Well, the book that
Alison mentioned

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called The Vixen, which
is the last published

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book, the form of the poems--

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they're all-- all the poems
are the same form in--

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they're not the same length, but
the lines work the same way--

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and they're all
about the same place,

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which is Southwest France, not
at the same particular time.

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They move around in time.

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They also seem to move
around in the book

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because I can never find the
one I'm looking for, but--

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well, it seems to
have-- oh, here we are.

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It's called "Present."

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If any of you-- there was a book
that I was encouraged to read

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and did when I was in college.

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It was a very important work
in the beginning of, what was

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the age of criticism, alas,
but written by an English,

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English poet and
critic, William Empson,

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called the Seven
Types of Ambiguity,

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and he talked about the way
English uses ambiguity in a way

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that most of the Romance
languages really don't.

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So it's beautiful in that, but
the-- one of the great glories

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of English, this mess of a
language that we all inherited,

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which is a great gift to have--

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I mean, I sometimes wake
up thinking, oh, my god,

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how wonderful not to have
been born a poet with French

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as one's native
language, you know.

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[LAUGHTER]

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I mean, I love, I
love, I love France.

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I love French.

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I love French poetry very
much, but what a language

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to have to deal with.

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And, and of course,
the poem is just

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sort of a dreadful
idea in France.

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I mean it's amazing you
made a mistake, I mean,

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which do you mean?

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But Shakespeare knew
that this wasn't

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the way it happened that you
meant everything at once.

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And the French really
knew this, too,

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until the beginning
of the 17th century,

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and then they decided
to unlearn it.

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But this-- all these poems are
set in the Southwest of France

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that was very
important, where I lived

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a good bit of my life, my
earlier life, a region that's

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changed quite a lot since then.

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"Present"

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"She informed me that she
had a tree of mirabelles,

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told me it was the only
one anywhere around.

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She did not want everyone
to realize she had it.

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It might go for years
and bear nothing

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at all, flowering with the
other plums, but then nothing.

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And another year, it would
be covered with mirabelles.

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You know they are not so
big as all the others,

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but they are more delicate,
for those acquainted with them.

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She promised me mirabelles
if it was the year for them.

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She lived in a
house so small she

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must have been able to reach
anything from where she was,

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and her garden was
scarcely larger.

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She grew corn salad in winter
after Brussels sprouts.

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Well, it was a cold
garden, facing north,

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so it was slow in spring,
better for summer.

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One of the knotted, gray
trees leaning against the wall

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to the south was the mirabelle.

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A snow of plum blossoms
swept across the valley

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in the morning sunlight
of a day in March

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and moved up the
slope, hour by hour.

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She told me later,
she thought it

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would be a year of
mirabelles, unless it froze.

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When she bent in her garden,
she disappeared in the rose.

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It took her a long
time to stand up,

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to turn around, let herself
through the gate, the walk,

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to do anything.

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At my age, I have all I need
if I keep warm, she said.

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Late one day that
summer, she appeared

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at the wall carrying a brown
paper bag, wet at the bottom.

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The mirabelles, she whispered,
but she would not come in.

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We sat on the wall
and opened the bag.

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Look, she said, how you can see
through them, and each of us

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held up a small, golden plum,
filled with the summer evening."

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