WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.662 align:middle line:90% 00:00:04.662 --> 00:00:05.370 align:middle line:90% How's, everybody? 00:00:05.370 --> 00:00:06.200 align:middle line:90% Doing OK? 00:00:06.200 --> 00:00:06.700 align:middle line:90% Good. 00:00:06.700 --> 00:00:07.200 align:middle line:90% OK, good. 00:00:07.200 --> 00:00:10.542 align:middle line:90% 00:00:10.542 --> 00:00:12.750 align:middle line:84% I like to read this poem when I read at universities. 00:00:12.750 --> 00:00:13.958 align:middle line:90% It's called "Graduation Day." 00:00:13.958 --> 00:00:16.360 align:middle line:84% I teach it-- I teach at a college. 00:00:16.360 --> 00:00:18.700 align:middle line:90% And so I'm a faculty member. 00:00:18.700 --> 00:00:22.980 align:middle line:84% So at commencement, I have to put on the regalia, right? 00:00:22.980 --> 00:00:24.730 align:middle line:90% Although mine is borrowed. 00:00:24.730 --> 00:00:28.680 align:middle line:84% So we have to borrow it, and it's always the wrong color. 00:00:28.680 --> 00:00:29.890 align:middle line:90% But you have to sit up there. 00:00:29.890 --> 00:00:31.598 align:middle line:84% And when you're faculty and you're facing 00:00:31.598 --> 00:00:33.690 align:middle line:84% and everybody's graduating, and you have to look 00:00:33.690 --> 00:00:35.130 align:middle line:90% attentive the whole time. 00:00:35.130 --> 00:00:36.960 align:middle line:84% It's hours, you have to look attentive. 00:00:36.960 --> 00:00:38.280 align:middle line:90% And it's hard. 00:00:38.280 --> 00:00:41.207 align:middle line:84% It's hard to be attentive because, I mean, 00:00:41.207 --> 00:00:43.290 align:middle line:84% I don't know most of the people graduating, right? 00:00:43.290 --> 00:00:45.630 align:middle line:84% So I'm like, theoretically happy for them. 00:00:45.630 --> 00:00:48.480 align:middle line:90% But actually, I want to be home. 00:00:48.480 --> 00:00:51.240 align:middle line:90% So sorry to break the spell. 00:00:51.240 --> 00:00:54.015 align:middle line:84% But anyway, so one year I decided 00:00:54.015 --> 00:00:55.890 align:middle line:84% I was going to write a poem during the thing, 00:00:55.890 --> 00:00:58.490 align:middle line:84% but I was going to do it just like this in my notebook. 00:00:58.490 --> 00:01:00.240 align:middle line:84% And I was going to with my hand like that. 00:01:00.240 --> 00:01:01.560 align:middle line:90% So I took these notes. 00:01:01.560 --> 00:01:05.319 align:middle line:84% And then I went home and I wrote this poem 00:01:05.319 --> 00:01:06.400 align:middle line:90% called "Graduation Day." 00:01:06.400 --> 00:01:08.980 align:middle line:90% So "Graduation Day." 00:01:08.980 --> 00:01:13.430 align:middle line:84% Drawn by ceremonial obligation up from sleep, 00:01:13.430 --> 00:01:17.260 align:middle line:84% I awoke and stepped into the borrowed black robes 00:01:17.260 --> 00:01:21.760 align:middle line:84% All ghost bureaucrats trained to redirect dreaming 00:01:21.760 --> 00:01:24.980 align:middle line:90% Pretend we do not like to wear. 00:01:24.980 --> 00:01:28.370 align:middle line:84% I drove my black car to the stadium to sit on stage 00:01:28.370 --> 00:01:29.630 align:middle line:90% and be watched. 00:01:29.630 --> 00:01:32.600 align:middle line:84% Watching young expectant spirits, 00:01:32.600 --> 00:01:36.920 align:middle line:84% One by one with dread, certainty, pass before me, 00:01:36.920 --> 00:01:39.660 align:middle line:90% Clouded in their names. 00:01:39.660 --> 00:01:43.650 align:middle line:84% Then listen to no one in their speeches say, 00:01:43.650 --> 00:01:47.620 align:middle line:84% You're welcome for allowing us not to tell you 00:01:47.620 --> 00:01:49.980 align:middle line:84% It's already too late to learn anything. 00:01:49.980 --> 00:01:53.070 align:middle line:84% Or defend whatever accidental instrument in us 00:01:53.070 --> 00:01:55.860 align:middle line:84% causes all these useless thoughts. 00:01:55.860 --> 00:02:00.840 align:middle line:84% Like, if you walked for hours through the vast black avenues 00:02:00.840 --> 00:02:02.880 align:middle line:90% of those server farms 00:02:02.880 --> 00:02:05.880 align:middle line:84% All of us with our endless attention built, 00:02:05.880 --> 00:02:09.570 align:middle line:84% You can almost feel the same peaceful disinterest 00:02:09.570 --> 00:02:13.170 align:middle line:84% As when your parents, talking and smoking, 00:02:13.170 --> 00:02:17.190 align:middle line:84% Raised their heads for a moment to smile and tell you, 00:02:17.190 --> 00:02:19.770 align:middle line:84% Go back upstairs and read the book 00:02:19.770 --> 00:02:24.720 align:middle line:84% you love about myths that explain weather and death. 00:02:24.720 --> 00:02:26.790 align:middle line:90% Now, it is almost June, 00:02:26.790 --> 00:02:30.060 align:middle line:84% And they're finally the children they always were. 00:02:30.060 --> 00:02:33.990 align:middle line:84% So more precise than anyone has ever had to be. 00:02:33.990 --> 00:02:36.510 align:middle line:90% Go forget everything we told you 00:02:36.510 --> 00:02:39.700 align:middle line:84% So you can fix what we kept destroying 00:02:39.700 --> 00:02:40.765 align:middle line:90% by calling the future. 00:02:40.765 --> 00:02:45.370 align:middle line:90% 00:02:45.370 --> 00:02:48.220 align:middle line:84% And I don't think I'm going to get asked to be the commencement 00:02:48.220 --> 00:02:52.150 align:middle line:90% speaker, where I teach. 00:02:52.150 --> 00:02:54.300 align:middle line:90% Thankfully.