WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.670 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.670 --> 00:00:09.660 align:middle line:84% This is a poem which grows out of teaching. 00:00:09.660 --> 00:00:12.630 align:middle line:84% There's a kind of it's like this sort of unwritten rule, 00:00:12.630 --> 00:00:15.630 align:middle line:84% you're not supposed to write poems about teaching. 00:00:15.630 --> 00:00:18.570 align:middle line:84% Something that lots of poets that I know, spend all this time 00:00:18.570 --> 00:00:21.300 align:middle line:84% teaching, and nobody talks about it in their poems 00:00:21.300 --> 00:00:24.450 align:middle line:84% because it's like not real life, or whatever, you know? 00:00:24.450 --> 00:00:28.020 align:middle line:84% Which just doesn't-- just feels strange to me. 00:00:28.020 --> 00:00:30.300 align:middle line:84% And I have to admit, this poem actually 00:00:30.300 --> 00:00:35.610 align:middle line:84% isn't about teaching, but about a story that one of my students 00:00:35.610 --> 00:00:37.620 align:middle line:90% told me. 00:00:37.620 --> 00:00:41.820 align:middle line:84% A woman who sometimes would decide 00:00:41.820 --> 00:00:43.740 align:middle line:90% to divest herself of her life. 00:00:43.740 --> 00:00:47.185 align:middle line:90% 00:00:47.185 --> 00:00:48.060 align:middle line:90% It's called "Heaven". 00:00:48.060 --> 00:00:53.190 align:middle line:90% 00:00:53.190 --> 00:00:56.460 align:middle line:84% "Tonight there's a mirror on the sidewalk, 00:00:56.460 --> 00:01:00.660 align:middle line:84% leaning on the steps of the cathedral. 00:01:00.660 --> 00:01:03.310 align:middle line:84% I want to think it's a work of art, 00:01:03.310 --> 00:01:06.750 align:middle line:84% or at least an intentional gesture. 00:01:06.750 --> 00:01:11.220 align:middle line:84% Anyone passing can see, reversed here, 00:01:11.220 --> 00:01:16.230 align:middle line:84% the rooftop virgin's golden face ringed by light bulbs 00:01:16.230 --> 00:01:19.740 align:middle line:90% looking up toward us. 00:01:19.740 --> 00:01:22.380 align:middle line:84% A few blocks down, the searchlights 00:01:22.380 --> 00:01:26.460 align:middle line:84% revolve atop some office tower's steely sheen. 00:01:26.460 --> 00:01:28.110 align:middle line:90% Where would they lead us? 00:01:28.110 --> 00:01:30.600 align:middle line:84% Those beacons that sweep the dark 00:01:30.600 --> 00:01:33.450 align:middle line:84% and cut the steam billowing from the stacks 00:01:33.450 --> 00:01:36.480 align:middle line:84% so the sudden sections of cloud tumble 00:01:36.480 --> 00:01:40.530 align:middle line:84% in stunning and troubled currents. 00:01:40.530 --> 00:01:45.030 align:middle line:84% I have a friend who sometimes sells everything. 00:01:45.030 --> 00:01:49.830 align:middle line:84% Scrapes together enough money to get to the city and lives 00:01:49.830 --> 00:01:53.610 align:middle line:84% on the streets here in the parks. 00:01:53.610 --> 00:01:56.280 align:middle line:84% She says she likes waking knowing 00:01:56.280 --> 00:01:58.920 align:middle line:90% she can be anyone she wants. 00:01:58.920 --> 00:02:03.540 align:middle line:84% Keep any name, as long as it wears well. 00:02:03.540 --> 00:02:07.620 align:middle line:84% She stayed with one man a few days, 00:02:07.620 --> 00:02:11.700 align:middle line:84% calling themselves whatever they liked, or nothing. 00:02:11.700 --> 00:02:17.280 align:middle line:84% They slept in the park beneath a silver cloth, a space blanket 00:02:17.280 --> 00:02:20.970 align:middle line:84% that mirrored the city lights, and the heat 00:02:20.970 --> 00:02:26.070 align:middle line:84% of his dog coiled between them would warm them. 00:02:26.070 --> 00:02:31.350 align:middle line:84% I knew she says, I was in heaven. 00:02:31.350 --> 00:02:36.540 align:middle line:84% Isn't that where those beams washing and disguising the stars 00:02:36.540 --> 00:02:38.820 align:middle line:90% have always called us? 00:02:38.820 --> 00:02:41.310 align:middle line:84% The anonymous paradise where there 00:02:41.310 --> 00:02:46.950 align:middle line:84% isn't any telling how many of these futures will be ours? 00:02:46.950 --> 00:02:52.860 align:middle line:84% It was enough to be warmed by steam blurring the cafe windows, 00:02:52.860 --> 00:02:57.090 align:middle line:84% to study how grocers stacked the wet jewels of produce 00:02:57.090 --> 00:02:59.580 align:middle line:90% and seem fed. 00:02:59.580 --> 00:03:02.850 align:middle line:84% Though the wine-flush would brighten everything. 00:03:02.850 --> 00:03:07.530 align:middle line:84% And dull the morning of working a thankless block. 00:03:07.530 --> 00:03:12.300 align:middle line:84% She held out her hand enough times to catch a torrent. 00:03:12.300 --> 00:03:16.200 align:middle line:84% Though little was offered but the sharpening chill 00:03:16.200 --> 00:03:23.460 align:middle line:84% of the street lacquered by rain, perfected and unyielding. 00:03:23.460 --> 00:03:27.150 align:middle line:84% It's a little easier for a woman to panhandle. 00:03:27.150 --> 00:03:31.650 align:middle line:84% That's why my friend needed the dog. 00:03:31.650 --> 00:03:34.740 align:middle line:84% Sometime, when the weather turned, 00:03:34.740 --> 00:03:38.950 align:middle line:84% she'd go back home, at least until spring. 00:03:38.950 --> 00:03:40.830 align:middle line:90% Longer, maybe. 00:03:40.830 --> 00:03:44.730 align:middle line:84% But not before arriving at afternoons when 00:03:44.730 --> 00:03:46.860 align:middle line:90% she wanted nothing. 00:03:46.860 --> 00:03:51.870 align:middle line:84% Whole nights without desire, since everything passing 00:03:51.870 --> 00:03:54.390 align:middle line:90% was hers. 00:03:54.390 --> 00:03:57.900 align:middle line:84% Though she could not participate in the mortal pretense 00:03:57.900 --> 00:04:00.600 align:middle line:90% of keeping anything. 00:04:00.600 --> 00:04:03.630 align:middle line:84% That lie belonged to the privileged, 00:04:03.630 --> 00:04:06.420 align:middle line:84% who hurried along the sidewalks just 00:04:06.420 --> 00:04:10.020 align:middle line:84% outside the stone boundaries of the park. 00:04:10.020 --> 00:04:13.380 align:middle line:84% And though they tried to warm themselves with it, 00:04:13.380 --> 00:04:18.269 align:middle line:84% they still required those luxurious frost-tipped pelts, 00:04:18.269 --> 00:04:22.710 align:middle line:84% the skins ripped and tailored out of their contexts. 00:04:22.710 --> 00:04:27.120 align:middle line:84% She knew she could lie there with her stranger, 00:04:27.120 --> 00:04:29.730 align:middle line:84% with the living animal between them." 00:04:29.730 --> 00:04:35.454 align:middle line:90% 00:04:35.454 --> 00:04:36.890 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:04:36.890 --> 00:04:37.660 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:04:37.660 --> 00:04:41.040 align:middle line:90% 00:04:41.040 --> 00:04:43.260 align:middle line:90% Thank you, you're very nice. 00:04:43.260 --> 00:04:45.000 align:middle line:90%