WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.700 align:middle line:84%
And we actually have one
more poem from this book.

00:00:05.700 --> 00:00:07.380 align:middle line:84%
At some point in
my life, I noticed

00:00:07.380 --> 00:00:11.470 align:middle line:84%
that I didn't cry as much as
I used to when I was younger.

00:00:11.470 --> 00:00:14.670 align:middle line:84%
I'm not like a child, but
when you're in your 20s,

00:00:14.670 --> 00:00:18.180 align:middle line:84%
you cry more than when you're
in your 30s, I think, or 40s,

00:00:18.180 --> 00:00:19.290 align:middle line:90%
at least I did.

00:00:19.290 --> 00:00:22.350 align:middle line:84%
And I started writing
poems about crying,

00:00:22.350 --> 00:00:25.720 align:middle line:84%
or the longing to cry,
or something like that.

00:00:25.720 --> 00:00:27.990 align:middle line:90%
This is called, "Measuring."

00:00:27.990 --> 00:00:30.570 align:middle line:84%
And I guess another
inspiration here

00:00:30.570 --> 00:00:33.090 align:middle line:84%
is that when I was once
in Montpelier, Vermont,

00:00:33.090 --> 00:00:36.630 align:middle line:84%
I was in a museum where they
had these tear vial glasses.

00:00:36.630 --> 00:00:39.710 align:middle line:84%
People actually would save
their tears in Victorian times.

00:00:39.710 --> 00:00:41.710 align:middle line:84%
I don't know what they
did with them after that,

00:00:41.710 --> 00:00:44.100 align:middle line:84%
but there were
tear vial glasses,

00:00:44.100 --> 00:00:45.900 align:middle line:90%
and that gets into the poem too.

00:00:45.900 --> 00:00:48.810 align:middle line:84%
Called, "Measuring," "We're
watching the sad movie

00:00:48.810 --> 00:00:50.830 align:middle line:90%
for the seventh time today.

00:00:50.830 --> 00:00:53.910 align:middle line:84%
Let's take off our tear
vial glasses and observe.

00:00:53.910 --> 00:00:57.570 align:middle line:84%
Like yawns, tears travel
the audience, dumb tears,

00:00:57.570 --> 00:01:00.090 align:middle line:84%
cockney tears, red,
white, and blue tears,

00:01:00.090 --> 00:01:02.550 align:middle line:84%
touching only to
his mother tears.

00:01:02.550 --> 00:01:04.800 align:middle line:84%
Leaky tear valves
fill the Potomac.

00:01:04.800 --> 00:01:08.040 align:middle line:84%
Frenchmen cry into their
berets, children cry

00:01:08.040 --> 00:01:10.200 align:middle line:90%
on metal decks of ocean liners.

00:01:10.200 --> 00:01:13.410 align:middle line:84%
I'd like to cry with you for
just one minute, five short

00:01:13.410 --> 00:01:16.200 align:middle line:84%
of the national average
for women, but then again,

00:01:16.200 --> 00:01:17.730 align:middle line:90%
I'm no average woman.

00:01:17.730 --> 00:01:20.610 align:middle line:84%
We could conquer television
with our true emotions,

00:01:20.610 --> 00:01:24.630 align:middle line:84%
make announcers weep, and
executives foam like geysers.

00:01:24.630 --> 00:01:27.600 align:middle line:84%
I'll cry over the burned
English muffin on my plate,

00:01:27.600 --> 00:01:29.640 align:middle line:90%
you'll cry into the sink.

00:01:29.640 --> 00:01:30.930 align:middle line:90%
What are tears like?

00:01:30.930 --> 00:01:33.540 align:middle line:90%


00:01:33.540 --> 00:01:37.140 align:middle line:84%
Variety shows, door keepers
who've lost their keys,

00:01:37.140 --> 00:01:41.100 align:middle line:84%
mother in laws naked, a shabby
church where a Madonna is

00:01:41.100 --> 00:01:43.350 align:middle line:90%
said to have wept last Tuesday.

00:01:43.350 --> 00:01:48.480 align:middle line:84%
We lose patience with
our own grand gestures.

00:01:48.480 --> 00:01:52.050 align:middle line:84%
We are left with one memento,
the saddest of them all,

00:01:52.050 --> 00:01:57.020 align:middle line:84%
our desire to emote like
factory chimneys in December."