WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.030 align:middle line:90% 00:00:06.030 --> 00:00:09.630 align:middle line:84% And I was asked to read this poem. 00:00:09.630 --> 00:00:14.610 align:middle line:84% My mother was visiting one year when 00:00:14.610 --> 00:00:18.210 align:middle line:84% I was under a great deal of stress 00:00:18.210 --> 00:00:21.690 align:middle line:84% from teaching and raising a family. 00:00:21.690 --> 00:00:24.480 align:middle line:84% And she said to me in a soft voice one day, 00:00:24.480 --> 00:00:32.610 align:middle line:84% ''Honey, I think it's time for you to stop recycling.'' And I 00:00:32.610 --> 00:00:34.440 align:middle line:90% did for a while. 00:00:34.440 --> 00:00:37.560 align:middle line:84% She does recycle and so do I. But it 00:00:37.560 --> 00:00:39.390 align:middle line:84% was so dear she let me off the hook 00:00:39.390 --> 00:00:45.870 align:middle line:84% and we let each other off the hook for a little while. 00:00:45.870 --> 00:00:48.630 align:middle line:84% So this is an anti recycling poem, 00:00:48.630 --> 00:00:50.360 align:middle line:84% which I dare not read in California, 00:00:50.360 --> 00:00:52.110 align:middle line:84% but I always read it when I'm on the road. 00:00:52.110 --> 00:00:59.940 align:middle line:90% 00:00:59.940 --> 00:01:04.379 align:middle line:84% It's a Gnostic view of recycling. 00:01:04.379 --> 00:01:07.080 align:middle line:84% The labeled bins on the California hillside 00:01:07.080 --> 00:01:10.950 align:middle line:84% catch the glint and quarter glint of passing cars. 00:01:10.950 --> 00:01:14.550 align:middle line:84% Families pull up with their interesting trash and start 00:01:14.550 --> 00:01:15.390 align:middle line:90% unloading. 00:01:15.390 --> 00:01:19.350 align:middle line:84% Here sweetheart, this goes over in newspaper. 00:01:19.350 --> 00:01:21.720 align:middle line:90% The bundle hits with a thud. 00:01:21.720 --> 00:01:25.320 align:middle line:84% Diet soda can spin almost noiselessly down, 00:01:25.320 --> 00:01:28.320 align:middle line:84% and the sun permitting bottles from a day's pleasure 00:01:28.320 --> 00:01:31.200 align:middle line:84% are tossed into mixed glass by the children who 00:01:31.200 --> 00:01:35.880 align:middle line:84% like to hear the smash, unknowable, chaotic, as matter 00:01:35.880 --> 00:01:39.390 align:middle line:84% greets itself and starts to change. 00:01:39.390 --> 00:01:42.480 align:middle line:90% What mystery is inside a thing? 00:01:42.480 --> 00:01:46.290 align:middle line:84% If we peered into the bin, we could see it waiting there, 00:01:46.290 --> 00:01:50.910 align:middle line:84% could believe everything is alive and specific and personal. 00:01:50.910 --> 00:01:54.630 align:middle line:84% Could tell by the tilt of one bottle against the next 00:01:54.630 --> 00:01:58.410 align:middle line:84% that it's difficult to be singular, to have identity, 00:01:58.410 --> 00:02:02.880 align:middle line:84% to keep an outline safe in the terrors of space. 00:02:02.880 --> 00:02:05.070 align:middle line:90% Even the child knows this. 00:02:05.070 --> 00:02:07.770 align:middle line:84% Bye, bottle, she shouts, tossing it in, 00:02:07.770 --> 00:02:11.700 align:middle line:84% and the bottle lies there in the 2 o'clock position temporarily 00:02:11.700 --> 00:02:16.980 align:middle line:84% itself before being swept into the destiny of mixture. 00:02:16.980 --> 00:02:19.770 align:middle line:90% But what if some don't want to? 00:02:19.770 --> 00:02:22.350 align:middle line:84% What if some items in the piles of paper, 00:02:22.350 --> 00:02:26.430 align:middle line:84% the orange and blue envelopes from the magazine sweepstakes, 00:02:26.430 --> 00:02:30.480 align:middle line:84% numbers pressing through the cloudy windows with our names, 00:02:30.480 --> 00:02:34.170 align:middle line:84% some among those pale sheets, curled with moisture, 00:02:34.170 --> 00:02:36.960 align:middle line:90% would rather stay as they are? 00:02:36.960 --> 00:02:38.490 align:middle line:90% It's spring. 00:02:38.490 --> 00:02:43.710 align:middle line:84% We've thrown away mistakes, tax forms, recipes, 00:02:43.710 --> 00:02:48.120 align:middle line:84% tennis ball sized drafts of poems. 00:02:48.120 --> 00:02:51.450 align:middle line:84% That which was blank shall be made blank again. 00:02:51.450 --> 00:02:55.350 align:middle line:84% But what if that failed letter wants to be a failure, 00:02:55.350 --> 00:03:00.270 align:middle line:84% not go back to pulp and thought, or across the parking lot 00:03:00.270 --> 00:03:03.420 align:middle line:84% where light insists on changing the dull cans, 00:03:03.420 --> 00:03:06.360 align:middle line:84% s few cans don't want to be changed? 00:03:06.360 --> 00:03:07.950 align:middle line:90% So they should want to. 00:03:07.950 --> 00:03:09.030 align:middle line:90% Shouldn't they? 00:03:09.030 --> 00:03:12.250 align:middle line:84% Should want to be changed by light, 00:03:12.250 --> 00:03:17.280 align:middle line:84% which is called sweet reason, honeyed, spectra, magnitude, 00:03:17.280 --> 00:03:21.570 align:middle line:84% light that goes from the parking lot looking helpless 00:03:21.570 --> 00:03:25.950 align:middle line:84% though it is matter that has been betrayed. 00:03:25.950 --> 00:03:28.830 align:middle line:84% All afternoon, the bins are carried off 00:03:28.830 --> 00:03:31.770 align:middle line:84% by those who know about where things should go, 00:03:31.770 --> 00:03:35.610 align:middle line:84% who are used to the clatter the cans make pouring out 00:03:35.610 --> 00:03:38.910 align:middle line:84% and the families who believe change would heal them are 00:03:38.910 --> 00:03:41.910 align:middle line:84% pulling away in their vans slightly embarrassed 00:03:41.910 --> 00:03:44.130 align:middle line:90% by that which refused. 00:03:44.130 --> 00:03:47.520 align:middle line:84% The bins fill again with hard substances. 00:03:47.520 --> 00:03:50.880 align:middle line:84% The hills bear down with their fugitive gold. 00:03:50.880 --> 00:03:55.020 align:middle line:84% The pampas grass bending low to protect what was briefly 00:03:55.020 --> 00:03:58.250 align:middle line:90% certain and alive with hope.