WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.080 align:middle line:84%
I would like to thank you
all very much for coming,

00:00:04.080 --> 00:00:07.410 align:middle line:84%
to thank the Poetry Center
and all of its friends

00:00:07.410 --> 00:00:08.760 align:middle line:90%
for bringing me here.

00:00:08.760 --> 00:00:12.420 align:middle line:84%
I've been immensely
happy, inexplicably happy

00:00:12.420 --> 00:00:16.320 align:middle line:84%
since my plane started
coming into Tucson.

00:00:16.320 --> 00:00:21.780 align:middle line:84%
So I appreciate that, and thank
you for a very, very wonderful

00:00:21.780 --> 00:00:23.980 align:middle line:90%
introduction.

00:00:23.980 --> 00:00:26.790 align:middle line:84%
I'm going to read
a couple of poems

00:00:26.790 --> 00:00:31.200 align:middle line:84%
from my second book, Of Gravity
and Angels, and then a selection

00:00:31.200 --> 00:00:34.860 align:middle line:84%
from The October
Palace and then I

00:00:34.860 --> 00:00:40.110 align:middle line:84%
hope leave time for a good
chunk of the newer work.

00:00:40.110 --> 00:00:45.310 align:middle line:84%
We begin with a
poem called "Heat."

00:00:45.310 --> 00:00:49.990 align:middle line:84%
My mare when she was in heat
would travel the fence line

00:00:49.990 --> 00:00:53.530 align:middle line:84%
for hours, wearing the
impatience in her feet

00:00:53.530 --> 00:00:55.420 align:middle line:90%
into the ground.

00:00:55.420 --> 00:00:58.360 align:middle line:84%
Not a stallion for
miles, I'd assure her.

00:00:58.360 --> 00:01:00.160 align:middle line:90%
Give it up.

00:01:00.160 --> 00:01:04.450 align:middle line:84%
She'd widen her nostrils,
sieve the wind for news,

00:01:04.450 --> 00:01:09.430 align:middle line:84%
be moving again, her underbelly
darkening with sweat.

00:01:09.430 --> 00:01:14.590 align:middle line:84%
Then stop at the gate a moment,
wait to see what I might do.

00:01:14.590 --> 00:01:17.290 align:middle line:90%
Oh, I knew how it was for her.

00:01:17.290 --> 00:01:22.090 align:middle line:84%
Easily recognized myself
in that wide lust.

00:01:22.090 --> 00:01:26.290 align:middle line:84%
Came to stand in the pasture
just to see it played.

00:01:26.290 --> 00:01:29.560 align:middle line:84%
Offered a hand, a
bucket of grain,

00:01:29.560 --> 00:01:34.420 align:middle line:84%
a minute's distraction from
passion, the most I gave.

00:01:34.420 --> 00:01:37.150 align:middle line:84%
Then she'd returned
to what burned

00:01:37.150 --> 00:01:41.110 align:middle line:90%
her, the fence, the fence.

00:01:41.110 --> 00:01:46.000 align:middle line:84%
So hoping I might see,
might let her free.

00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:53.230 align:middle line:84%
I'd envy her then, to be so
restlessly sure of heat and need

00:01:53.230 --> 00:01:58.300 align:middle line:84%
and what it takes to feed
the wanting that we are.

00:01:58.300 --> 00:02:01.720 align:middle line:84%
Only a gap to open, the
width of a mare, the rest

00:02:01.720 --> 00:02:03.550 align:middle line:90%
would take care of itself.

00:02:03.550 --> 00:02:06.400 align:middle line:84%
Surely, surely, I
knew that, who had

00:02:06.400 --> 00:02:08.770 align:middle line:90%
the power of bucket and bridle.

00:02:08.770 --> 00:02:12.700 align:middle line:84%
She would beseech me,
sidle up, be gone.

00:02:12.700 --> 00:02:19.260 align:middle line:84%
As life is short,
but desire is long.

00:02:19.260 --> 00:02:20.000 align:middle line:90%