WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.540 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.540 --> 00:00:06.150 align:middle line:84% Read a-- this is a poem I wrote a year 00:00:06.150 --> 00:00:09.690 align:middle line:84% or two ago when the Senate hearings on gays 00:00:09.690 --> 00:00:12.330 align:middle line:90% in the military was going on. 00:00:12.330 --> 00:00:14.550 align:middle line:84% And which we watched with interest, 00:00:14.550 --> 00:00:17.730 align:middle line:84% and which had stupid non-consequences. 00:00:17.730 --> 00:00:19.830 align:middle line:90% But it was still satisfying. 00:00:19.830 --> 00:00:21.840 align:middle line:84% You felt that in some way that something 00:00:21.840 --> 00:00:25.380 align:middle line:84% was being accomplished, because you 00:00:25.380 --> 00:00:28.350 align:middle line:84% had to hear all the congressmen and senators say 00:00:28.350 --> 00:00:30.690 align:middle line:90% the word homosexual in public. 00:00:30.690 --> 00:00:31.890 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:31.890 --> 00:00:36.370 align:middle line:84% And you could feel you know how arduous that was for them. 00:00:36.370 --> 00:00:36.870 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:36.870 --> 00:00:40.290 align:middle line:84% That the word would come halfway up the esophagus. 00:00:40.290 --> 00:00:43.050 align:middle line:84% And it would meet a glottal block. 00:00:43.050 --> 00:00:45.526 align:middle line:84% And then, they would kind of chew it and spit it out. 00:00:45.526 --> 00:00:46.026 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:46.026 --> 00:00:52.830 align:middle line:84% And you felt that simply to have these men saying 00:00:52.830 --> 00:00:57.090 align:middle line:84% homosexual and lesbian in public was somehow 00:00:57.090 --> 00:00:59.820 align:middle line:84% or other something was being accomplished 00:00:59.820 --> 00:01:02.520 align:middle line:84% in the realm of language as it would shape reality 00:01:02.520 --> 00:01:03.210 align:middle line:90% in the future. 00:01:03.210 --> 00:01:04.500 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:04.500 --> 00:01:07.410 align:middle line:84% And so, that's sort of what it is. 00:01:07.410 --> 00:01:10.020 align:middle line:84% It's also sort of an autumn poem. 00:01:10.020 --> 00:01:13.380 align:middle line:90% And it has details of autumn. 00:01:13.380 --> 00:01:17.190 align:middle line:84% And one of the ways I tell the season 00:01:17.190 --> 00:01:21.120 align:middle line:84% is by seeing what's on special when I walk through Kmart. 00:01:21.120 --> 00:01:25.080 align:middle line:84% And what is on special in the autumn is wading pools. 00:01:25.080 --> 00:01:28.430 align:middle line:84% Those blue plastic pools with the seahorses and starfish. 00:01:28.430 --> 00:01:29.430 align:middle line:90% That's in this poem too. 00:01:29.430 --> 00:01:33.060 align:middle line:84% So anyway, the poem is called Hearings. 00:01:33.060 --> 00:01:37.740 align:middle line:84% Autumn, and the trees decide again they don't need leaves. 00:01:37.740 --> 00:01:41.490 align:middle line:84% Mothers add more blankets to the bed. 00:01:41.490 --> 00:01:45.150 align:middle line:84% Yellow lights in windows of the junior high 00:01:45.150 --> 00:01:48.450 align:middle line:84% mean that night school is back in session. 00:01:48.450 --> 00:01:52.470 align:middle line:84% Tired grownups sitting in the plastic desks learning 00:01:52.470 --> 00:01:58.680 align:middle line:84% to bisect the hypotenuse, how to say spreadsheet in Japanese. 00:01:58.680 --> 00:02:01.200 align:middle line:90% 00:02:01.200 --> 00:02:04.230 align:middle line:84% This week, on the televised hearings, 00:02:04.230 --> 00:02:07.530 align:middle line:84% we get to watch our congressmen nervously pronounce 00:02:07.530 --> 00:02:11.880 align:middle line:90% the word homosexual in public. 00:02:11.880 --> 00:02:15.030 align:middle line:84% The committee trying to determine whether queers 00:02:15.030 --> 00:02:18.690 align:middle line:84% are good enough to pull the triggers on machines designed 00:02:18.690 --> 00:02:23.580 align:middle line:84% to foreclose lives contrary to the national well-being. 00:02:23.580 --> 00:02:28.170 align:middle line:84% But the congressman can't pull the trigger on his own tongue 00:02:28.170 --> 00:02:32.760 align:middle line:84% to fire out the word without tripping over it, fumbling, 00:02:32.760 --> 00:02:36.840 align:middle line:84% stumbling into the ditch between home and sexual. 00:02:36.840 --> 00:02:39.390 align:middle line:90% 00:02:39.390 --> 00:02:42.940 align:middle line:84% You might say, his defense industry is troubled. 00:02:42.940 --> 00:02:43.920 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:43.920 --> 00:02:48.090 align:middle line:84% As if he had a subterranean suspicion, that to say 00:02:48.090 --> 00:02:52.590 align:middle line:84% it might mean just a little to become it. 00:02:52.590 --> 00:02:54.630 align:middle line:90% Which might be right. 00:02:54.630 --> 00:02:59.220 align:middle line:84% Since language uses us the way that birds use sky, 00:02:59.220 --> 00:03:02.700 align:middle line:84% the way that seeds and viruses braid themselves 00:03:02.700 --> 00:03:07.500 align:middle line:84% into a mammal's fur and hitchhike toward the future. 00:03:07.500 --> 00:03:11.520 align:middle line:84% When you say a word, you enter its vocabulary. 00:03:11.520 --> 00:03:14.340 align:middle line:84% It's got your home address, your phone number. 00:03:14.340 --> 00:03:17.070 align:middle line:90% And wait, it won't forget. 00:03:17.070 --> 00:03:21.750 align:middle line:84% The way the parents who finally bring themselves to say lesbian 00:03:21.750 --> 00:03:24.270 align:middle line:90% enter through that checkpoint-- 00:03:24.270 --> 00:03:28.260 align:middle line:84% the country where their daughter lives. 00:03:28.260 --> 00:03:32.700 align:middle line:84% Tonight, all over Washington, Senators in mirrors 00:03:32.700 --> 00:03:36.600 align:middle line:84% will practice until they are as fluent saying 00:03:36.600 --> 00:03:41.640 align:middle line:84% homosexual as they already are at saying, Mr. President 00:03:41.640 --> 00:03:45.940 align:middle line:90% and first strike option. 00:03:45.940 --> 00:03:48.580 align:middle line:84% Sometimes, we think the truth is the worst 00:03:48.580 --> 00:03:50.510 align:middle line:90% thing that could happen. 00:03:50.510 --> 00:03:54.910 align:middle line:84% But the truth is not the worst thing that could happen. 00:03:54.910 --> 00:03:56.230 align:middle line:90% Now, it is autumn. 00:03:56.230 --> 00:03:59.740 align:middle line:84% And in stores, the turquoise wading pools-- 00:03:59.740 --> 00:04:03.340 align:middle line:84% spangled with bright star fishes and shells-- 00:04:03.340 --> 00:04:07.000 align:middle line:84% are stacked against the wall on sale. 00:04:07.000 --> 00:04:10.330 align:middle line:84% Implying what was costly yesterday 00:04:10.330 --> 00:04:15.160 align:middle line:84% is cheap today, and may be free tomorrow. 00:04:15.160 --> 00:04:19.570 align:middle line:84% All our yearnings and our fears, so many sea horses 00:04:19.570 --> 00:04:23.315 align:middle line:90% galloping through bubbles. 00:04:23.315 --> 00:04:25.291 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:04:25.291 --> 00:04:28.750 align:middle line:90% 00:04:28.750 --> 00:04:30.960 align:middle line:90% Thank you very much. 00:04:30.960 --> 00:04:32.000 align:middle line:90%