WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.119 align:middle line:90% 00:00:08.119 --> 00:00:12.080 align:middle line:84% Poetry prize and a Dobie Paisano Fellowship. 00:00:12.080 --> 00:00:13.730 align:middle line:84% She directed the literature program 00:00:13.730 --> 00:00:15.680 align:middle line:84% at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center 00:00:15.680 --> 00:00:18.980 align:middle line:84% in San Antonio where she developed the San Antonio 00:00:18.980 --> 00:00:21.380 align:middle line:90% Inter-American Book Fair. 00:00:21.380 --> 00:00:24.470 align:middle line:84% A former Wallace Stegner fellow in poetry at Stanford, 00:00:24.470 --> 00:00:28.940 align:middle line:84% she received an NEA Poetry Fellowship in 1993. 00:00:28.940 --> 00:00:32.030 align:middle line:84% Currently, she's executive director of the Poetry Center 00:00:32.030 --> 00:00:34.710 align:middle line:84% and the American Poetry Archives at San Francisco State 00:00:34.710 --> 00:00:36.560 align:middle line:90% University. 00:00:36.560 --> 00:00:39.260 align:middle line:84% I'm particularly delighted to introduce her 00:00:39.260 --> 00:00:43.580 align:middle line:84% because she, like myself, struggles 00:00:43.580 --> 00:00:46.130 align:middle line:84% with the hard work of running an arts 00:00:46.130 --> 00:00:48.650 align:middle line:84% organization in a culture which doesn't provide 00:00:48.650 --> 00:00:49.940 align:middle line:90% much support for the arts. 00:00:49.940 --> 00:00:53.250 align:middle line:84% And in that way, not only practices her art, 00:00:53.250 --> 00:00:57.440 align:middle line:84% but tries to give something back to the art of poetry itself. 00:00:57.440 --> 00:01:00.350 align:middle line:84% And for that, we're all very grateful to her. 00:01:00.350 --> 00:01:03.732 align:middle line:84% So please welcome Rose Catacalos. 00:01:03.732 --> 00:01:07.169 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:01:07.169 --> 00:01:10.610 align:middle line:90% 00:01:10.610 --> 00:01:11.300 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:01:11.300 --> 00:01:17.480 align:middle line:84% It is wonderful to be on this side of this podium. 00:01:17.480 --> 00:01:22.010 align:middle line:84% I'd like to also send our love to Rosemary Puerta. 00:01:22.010 --> 00:01:25.700 align:middle line:84% We were just talking yesterday about being worried 00:01:25.700 --> 00:01:27.620 align:middle line:84% about our parents and about the possibility 00:01:27.620 --> 00:01:29.030 align:middle line:90% of being far from them. 00:01:29.030 --> 00:01:32.390 align:middle line:84% Rosemary is about to move to Minnesota. 00:01:32.390 --> 00:01:34.230 align:middle line:90% And that they might become ill. 00:01:34.230 --> 00:01:37.970 align:middle line:84% And for that to happen this very day is painful. 00:01:37.970 --> 00:01:41.690 align:middle line:84% But at least she is here, which is very good. 00:01:41.690 --> 00:01:47.720 align:middle line:84% I'd like to begin with a poem by Luis Omar Salinas, 00:01:47.720 --> 00:01:53.540 align:middle line:84% who is in this anthology called after Aztlan Latino Poets 00:01:53.540 --> 00:01:54.740 align:middle line:90% of the '90s. 00:01:54.740 --> 00:01:58.520 align:middle line:84% And I read this poem in a class that Rosemary 00:01:58.520 --> 00:02:02.480 align:middle line:90% had yesterday at East Campus-- 00:02:02.480 --> 00:02:05.180 align:middle line:84% is there an East Campus of Pima College? 00:02:05.180 --> 00:02:11.690 align:middle line:84% And I was really entranced with some of the resonances that 00:02:11.690 --> 00:02:13.190 align:middle line:84% happened as a result of a discussion 00:02:13.190 --> 00:02:14.840 align:middle line:90% we were having about film. 00:02:14.840 --> 00:02:22.070 align:middle line:84% And how one can confront social values in film 00:02:22.070 --> 00:02:25.640 align:middle line:84% that are perhaps more difficult to confront 00:02:25.640 --> 00:02:31.110 align:middle line:84% personally or with a performer in an eye-to-eye contact. 00:02:31.110 --> 00:02:33.170 align:middle line:90% So I remembered this poem. 00:02:33.170 --> 00:02:35.420 align:middle line:84% I read it to them and would like to read it again. 00:02:35.420 --> 00:02:37.760 align:middle line:84% It's called "Late Evening Conversation with 00:02:37.760 --> 00:02:41.090 align:middle line:84% My Friend's Dog, Moses, After Watching 00:02:41.090 --> 00:02:45.080 align:middle line:90% Visconti's The Innocent." 00:02:45.080 --> 00:02:49.580 align:middle line:84% "Moses, who is there to save us from the crickets? 00:02:49.580 --> 00:02:54.800 align:middle line:84% Those small gods in armor nagging some vague truths, 00:02:54.800 --> 00:02:59.570 align:middle line:84% transient as Visconti's light through the arbors of grapes 00:02:59.570 --> 00:03:01.550 align:middle line:90% and lilac. 00:03:01.550 --> 00:03:05.360 align:middle line:84% I think the loquats have been sleeping like our guardian 00:03:05.360 --> 00:03:06.320 align:middle line:90% angels. 00:03:06.320 --> 00:03:11.240 align:middle line:84% And who is to say what the moon is thinking? 00:03:11.240 --> 00:03:15.270 align:middle line:84% Or the lost fragments of our hearts. 00:03:15.270 --> 00:03:19.850 align:middle line:84% It could be the end of air in liquor, rain, 00:03:19.850 --> 00:03:22.730 align:middle line:90% or self-indulgence. 00:03:22.730 --> 00:03:28.460 align:middle line:84% You could complain about each leaf of the apricot falling. 00:03:28.460 --> 00:03:34.520 align:middle line:84% I too could catalog each woman that failed to save me. 00:03:34.520 --> 00:03:40.670 align:middle line:84% And we both could be as melancholy as clouds, Moses. 00:03:40.670 --> 00:03:45.470 align:middle line:84% There are no prophecies in the sky, only this Earth. 00:03:45.470 --> 00:03:48.660 align:middle line:90% It's gray at our fingertips. 00:03:48.660 --> 00:03:53.810 align:middle line:84% Let's stop bitching about death and the light of the lovers 00:03:53.810 --> 00:03:56.630 align:middle line:90% on the veranda next door. 00:03:56.630 --> 00:04:01.220 align:middle line:84% I want to explain, as you should too, 00:04:01.220 --> 00:04:06.170 align:middle line:84% about the meekness of all the nights that have passed, 00:04:06.170 --> 00:04:09.650 align:middle line:90% burnt out stars, or storms. 00:04:09.650 --> 00:04:14.120 align:middle line:84% We must take control of the air and breathe as only 00:04:14.120 --> 00:04:19.910 align:middle line:84% we can like the icy throat of comets. 00:04:19.910 --> 00:04:24.980 align:middle line:84% Listen to me, Moses, we're not as biblical as rain. 00:04:24.980 --> 00:04:30.980 align:middle line:84% But our transgressions go to the sea in search of speech. 00:04:30.980 --> 00:04:36.350 align:middle line:84% Salt or otherwise, blood or otherwise, 00:04:36.350 --> 00:04:41.990 align:middle line:84% things remain the same as long as we watch the fiddles turn. 00:04:41.990 --> 00:04:47.510 align:middle line:84% And despite the women, the rise and fall of French cinema, 00:04:47.510 --> 00:04:51.770 align:middle line:84% the heart must dance like lightning, burn, 00:04:51.770 --> 00:04:53.075 align:middle line:90% and save itself." 00:04:53.075 --> 00:05:03.210 align:middle line:90% 00:05:03.210 --> 00:05:09.150 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read a poem that Alison asked about actually, 00:05:09.150 --> 00:05:12.480 align:middle line:84% which I haven't read in a long time. 00:05:12.480 --> 00:05:15.450 align:middle line:84% And I like to talk about this poem 00:05:15.450 --> 00:05:22.560 align:middle line:84% because it has a story behind it. 00:05:22.560 --> 00:05:26.940 align:middle line:84% Some years ago, Maya Angelou came to San Antonio 00:05:26.940 --> 00:05:31.980 align:middle line:84% to do a series of performances and readings. 00:05:31.980 --> 00:05:37.110 align:middle line:84% And she made a great part of her presentation 00:05:37.110 --> 00:05:40.080 align:middle line:84% to talk to an audience of primarily 00:05:40.080 --> 00:05:43.260 align:middle line:84% African-American high school kids about the things 00:05:43.260 --> 00:05:46.050 align:middle line:84% that they should claim that were theirs, 00:05:46.050 --> 00:05:51.300 align:middle line:84% as well as the things that they knew to be theirs. 00:05:51.300 --> 00:05:54.510 align:middle line:84% She was speaking specifically about Shakespeare. 00:05:54.510 --> 00:05:59.730 align:middle line:84% And she got on, as only Maya can, a kind of a preach 00:05:59.730 --> 00:06:04.560 align:middle line:84% about you just claim everything that's yours 00:06:04.560 --> 00:06:06.090 align:middle line:90% and you speak about it. 00:06:06.090 --> 00:06:07.380 align:middle line:90% Because you have to. 00:06:07.380 --> 00:06:10.134 align:middle line:84% Because that's your responsibility. 00:06:10.134 --> 00:06:13.470 align:middle line:84% And God gave you what God gave you and you need to use it. 00:06:13.470 --> 00:06:18.060 align:middle line:84% And it was a pretty powerful rant. 00:06:18.060 --> 00:06:23.670 align:middle line:84% And I grew up in a Black neighborhood 00:06:23.670 --> 00:06:27.120 align:middle line:84% speaking Greek and Spanish as my first languages 00:06:27.120 --> 00:06:29.460 align:middle line:84% and then having English as a third language. 00:06:29.460 --> 00:06:35.430 align:middle line:84% And my ear, believe you me, remains extremely confused. 00:06:35.430 --> 00:06:38.220 align:middle line:84% And the one thing, the one language 00:06:38.220 --> 00:06:40.230 align:middle line:84% I had never allowed myself to claim 00:06:40.230 --> 00:06:42.450 align:middle line:84% was Black language, Black speech. 00:06:42.450 --> 00:06:46.380 align:middle line:84% Because for one thing, I was already too confused, 00:06:46.380 --> 00:06:52.140 align:middle line:84% and for another, I hadn't felt I had the right to. 00:06:52.140 --> 00:06:56.190 align:middle line:84% And so Maya gave me permission that day 00:06:56.190 --> 00:06:58.140 align:middle line:90% to reclaim that language. 00:06:58.140 --> 00:07:01.560 align:middle line:84% And this is the poem that came of it and it's called "Swallow 00:07:01.560 --> 00:07:02.595 align:middle line:90% Wings." 00:07:02.595 --> 00:07:05.330 align:middle line:90% 00:07:05.330 --> 00:07:08.270 align:middle line:90% "I've been to church, folks. 00:07:08.270 --> 00:07:13.340 align:middle line:84% I'm an Eastside Mexican Greek and I've been to church. 00:07:13.340 --> 00:07:16.760 align:middle line:84% I'm here to say, I grew up hearing folks sing over hard 00:07:16.760 --> 00:07:20.690 align:middle line:84% times in the key of uh-uh, girl, it ain't nothing about 00:07:20.690 --> 00:07:23.690 align:middle line:90% lettin' go of this life. 00:07:23.690 --> 00:07:25.700 align:middle line:84% I grew up in a hood where every day 00:07:25.700 --> 00:07:31.130 align:middle line:84% at noon, Black girls at Ralph Waldo Emerson Junior High School 00:07:31.130 --> 00:07:34.070 align:middle line:84% made a sacred drum of the corner mailbox, 00:07:34.070 --> 00:07:40.910 align:middle line:84% beating on it to raise the dead and make them dance. 00:07:40.910 --> 00:07:44.360 align:middle line:84% I grew up reading in the George Washington Carver Library 00:07:44.360 --> 00:07:47.150 align:middle line:84% and marveling at the white lightning gloves 00:07:47.150 --> 00:07:52.100 align:middle line:84% that top ladies of distinction used for church. 00:07:52.100 --> 00:07:55.340 align:middle line:84% I grew up where grits is indeed groceries 00:07:55.340 --> 00:08:00.230 align:middle line:84% and a huge mountain of a woman passed my house daily, 00:08:00.230 --> 00:08:03.800 align:middle line:90% always saying the same thing. 00:08:03.800 --> 00:08:09.800 align:middle line:84% Your name Rosemary, my name Rosemary too. 00:08:09.800 --> 00:08:12.620 align:middle line:84% I grew up folks, and I've been down 00:08:12.620 --> 00:08:15.720 align:middle line:84% till I couldn't get no more down in me. 00:08:15.720 --> 00:08:18.230 align:middle line:84% And now a preacher lady come to town 00:08:18.230 --> 00:08:21.770 align:middle line:84% and cause me to paint my face and put on some good clothes 00:08:21.770 --> 00:08:24.320 align:middle line:90% and go to church. 00:08:24.320 --> 00:08:27.800 align:middle line:84% And I'm here to say I have a right to take this stone 00:08:27.800 --> 00:08:32.030 align:middle line:84% because it ain't nothing about letting go of this life. 00:08:32.030 --> 00:08:37.700 align:middle line:84% Swallows keep making their wings out to be commas on the sky. 00:08:37.700 --> 00:08:44.996 align:middle line:84% World keep saying, and, and, and, and, and." 00:08:44.996 --> 00:08:53.190 align:middle line:90% 00:08:53.190 --> 00:08:56.100 align:middle line:84% I think I'm going to read something new. 00:08:56.100 --> 00:08:58.620 align:middle line:84% Or I'm going to skip back and forth a little bit tonight. 00:08:58.620 --> 00:09:09.980 align:middle line:90% 00:09:09.980 --> 00:09:13.640 align:middle line:84% This is a piece that kind of examines the vagaries 00:09:13.640 --> 00:09:16.190 align:middle line:84% and quirks of memory, but I think 00:09:16.190 --> 00:09:17.670 align:middle line:90% maybe all poetry does that. 00:09:17.670 --> 00:09:23.960 align:middle line:84% But at any rate, it refers to a landmark 00:09:23.960 --> 00:09:25.580 align:middle line:90% in San Antonio, my hometown. 00:09:25.580 --> 00:09:28.790 align:middle line:84% And it's called "Restoration of the Cathedral." 00:09:28.790 --> 00:09:32.120 align:middle line:84% And it has an epigraph from Elizabeth Hardwick: 00:09:32.120 --> 00:09:35.750 align:middle line:84% "And what you want from the lost things will present itself." 00:09:35.750 --> 00:09:38.420 align:middle line:90% 00:09:38.420 --> 00:09:42.710 align:middle line:84% "Hidden in a book, a note to myself that says, 00:09:42.710 --> 00:09:47.960 align:middle line:84% remember the yellow sashes, which I do not. 00:09:47.960 --> 00:09:54.650 align:middle line:84% Then Magda, who teaches Polish, whatever was meant by this 00:09:54.650 --> 00:09:59.750 align:middle line:84% is lost, gone beyond memory to a hazy province where 00:09:59.750 --> 00:10:04.370 align:middle line:84% the past accumulates a lottery of vague detail 00:10:04.370 --> 00:10:08.840 align:middle line:84% that shifts and turns on itself to be thrown up 00:10:08.840 --> 00:10:13.220 align:middle line:90% at any moment in some new guise. 00:10:13.220 --> 00:10:16.340 align:middle line:84% The yellow sashes, for example, have 00:10:16.340 --> 00:10:19.280 align:middle line:84% become the sunlit tiles that once paved 00:10:19.280 --> 00:10:23.210 align:middle line:90% the great dome of San Fernando. 00:10:23.210 --> 00:10:26.810 align:middle line:84% A bright yellow crown bordered with cobalt 00:10:26.810 --> 00:10:31.310 align:middle line:84% and meant to echo the promise of heaven 00:10:31.310 --> 00:10:35.420 align:middle line:84% for generations wearing the hopeful white suits 00:10:35.420 --> 00:10:43.430 align:middle line:84% and dresses of first communions, quinceaneras, weddings. 00:10:43.430 --> 00:10:48.650 align:middle line:84% Tired old men in stained khakis enthroned on their park benches 00:10:48.650 --> 00:10:53.300 align:middle line:84% in the plaza across the street would wave and cluck 00:10:53.300 --> 00:10:56.690 align:middle line:84% their tongues at the processions. 00:10:56.690 --> 00:11:00.230 align:middle line:84% Go back to predicting when and how long it 00:11:00.230 --> 00:11:04.460 align:middle line:84% would rain by the cuneiform of blackbirds 00:11:04.460 --> 00:11:08.690 align:middle line:90% perched on the dome at sunset. 00:11:08.690 --> 00:11:12.860 align:middle line:84% Once an old produce worker called Tío Lupe told me 00:11:12.860 --> 00:11:15.830 align:middle line:84% Pancho Villa was a good man but he should 00:11:15.830 --> 00:11:18.740 align:middle line:90% have done something else. 00:11:18.740 --> 00:11:21.020 align:middle line:84% When the time came, they shot him 00:11:21.020 --> 00:11:24.320 align:middle line:84% because he was for the poor people. 00:11:24.320 --> 00:11:28.400 align:middle line:84% He should have done something else. 00:11:28.400 --> 00:11:32.000 align:middle line:84% Not a wisdom, Lupe fully believed, 00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:35.810 align:middle line:84% but a poor man's way of telling himself his life 00:11:35.810 --> 00:11:39.110 align:middle line:90% had been all it could be. 00:11:39.110 --> 00:11:43.850 align:middle line:84% The long nights sorting onions in open sheds. 00:11:43.850 --> 00:11:48.740 align:middle line:84% Lifting, rolling, weighing, fingernails forever 00:11:48.740 --> 00:11:51.930 align:middle line:90% sore at the corners. 00:11:51.930 --> 00:11:56.510 align:middle line:84% Now machines do his job and the yellow tiles are gone from 00:11:56.510 --> 00:12:02.270 align:middle line:84% the church, deemed by architects to be mere 19th century 00:12:02.270 --> 00:12:07.580 align:middle line:84% afterthoughts ruining the purity of the dome. 00:12:07.580 --> 00:12:10.040 align:middle line:84% The simple fact of yellow tiles that 00:12:10.040 --> 00:12:14.120 align:middle line:84% had been there longer than anybody alive, 00:12:14.120 --> 00:12:18.440 align:middle line:84% lost like so much memory to the harsh work 00:12:18.440 --> 00:12:22.760 align:middle line:90% of faithful restoration. 00:12:22.760 --> 00:12:25.940 align:middle line:84% A rearrangement of heaven Lupe wouldn't 00:12:25.940 --> 00:12:31.850 align:middle line:84% recognize nor Magdalena, who knew no Polish, 00:12:31.850 --> 00:12:37.430 align:middle line:84% and wanted more than anything to marry my uncle Carlos. 00:12:37.430 --> 00:12:42.830 align:middle line:84% A posed snapshot from 1947 taken a few weeks 00:12:42.830 --> 00:12:46.640 align:middle line:84% before the engagement was broken off. 00:12:46.640 --> 00:12:53.270 align:middle line:84% A wide open face, pompadour, thick brows, 00:12:53.270 --> 00:12:58.460 align:middle line:84% and still no hint in the eyes that nothing would ever be 00:12:58.460 --> 00:12:59.555 align:middle line:90% the same again." 00:12:59.555 --> 00:13:09.510 align:middle line:90% 00:13:09.510 --> 00:13:16.290 align:middle line:84% I'm going to skip back in to "Again for the First Time," 00:13:16.290 --> 00:13:20.900 align:middle line:84% to a poem that only yesterday struck me to be related to one 00:13:20.900 --> 00:13:21.900 align:middle line:90% I'm going to read later. 00:13:21.900 --> 00:13:26.880 align:middle line:90% 00:13:26.880 --> 00:13:31.020 align:middle line:84% Only in that it participates in something that has always 00:13:31.020 --> 00:13:32.760 align:middle line:84% interested me a great deal, and that 00:13:32.760 --> 00:13:35.310 align:middle line:84% is the intersection or the borders, 00:13:35.310 --> 00:13:39.720 align:middle line:84% depending on how you think of borders. 00:13:39.720 --> 00:13:41.430 align:middle line:84% Because I come from border country, 00:13:41.430 --> 00:13:42.780 align:middle line:90% borders are central to me. 00:13:42.780 --> 00:13:45.240 align:middle line:84% I never think of borders as the edges of things, 00:13:45.240 --> 00:13:48.000 align:middle line:84% I think of them as the middles of things. 00:13:48.000 --> 00:13:50.913 align:middle line:90% 00:13:50.913 --> 00:13:52.830 align:middle line:84% And I've always been interested in the borders 00:13:52.830 --> 00:13:55.380 align:middle line:84% or the intersections between personal history 00:13:55.380 --> 00:13:59.130 align:middle line:84% and public history, community history. 00:13:59.130 --> 00:14:08.460 align:middle line:84% And this poem, which was written almost 20 years ago, 00:14:08.460 --> 00:14:11.340 align:middle line:84% deals with some of those kinds of intersections. 00:14:11.340 --> 00:14:17.110 align:middle line:84% It's called "From Bolivia After All This Time." 00:14:17.110 --> 00:14:22.960 align:middle line:84% "From so very far away on footpath, road, and trail, 00:14:22.960 --> 00:14:27.760 align:middle line:84% through jungle, on mountains, past ancient cities 00:14:27.760 --> 00:14:32.080 align:middle line:84% with men and old women and kitchens and love beds 00:14:32.080 --> 00:14:36.280 align:middle line:84% impressed in their silent stone bellies. 00:14:36.280 --> 00:14:41.320 align:middle line:84% Cities whose entrails of doorsteps and streets and sewers 00:14:41.320 --> 00:14:48.760 align:middle line:84% and altars long ago swallowed all time, all hope, all desire 00:14:48.760 --> 00:14:51.550 align:middle line:90% from so many lives. 00:14:51.550 --> 00:14:56.870 align:middle line:84% All in one quick gulp of a sundial. 00:14:56.870 --> 00:15:00.560 align:middle line:84% Past feathered gods who still wield enough terrible 00:15:00.560 --> 00:15:06.350 align:middle line:84% grimace to fling us down, to cut out our beating hearts, 00:15:06.350 --> 00:15:11.110 align:middle line:84% to call us by the name of sacrifice. 00:15:11.110 --> 00:15:14.860 align:middle line:84% Past desperate Spaniards maddened by an alien sun 00:15:14.860 --> 00:15:18.865 align:middle line:84% into agonizing wet dreams of coffins made of gold. 00:15:18.865 --> 00:15:21.370 align:middle line:90% 00:15:21.370 --> 00:15:26.830 align:middle line:84% Past bloody and tattered saints left for dead in the churches. 00:15:26.830 --> 00:15:32.950 align:middle line:84% Left to the children of mourning and their children's children. 00:15:32.950 --> 00:15:37.060 align:middle line:84% Past your own instant of life with its love letters 00:15:37.060 --> 00:15:42.340 align:middle line:84% to strangers, it's quiet addiction to magic. 00:15:42.340 --> 00:15:45.730 align:middle line:84% It's staring into the dark at love. 00:15:45.730 --> 00:15:52.870 align:middle line:84% Its promise to match death fruit for fruit, word for word, 00:15:52.870 --> 00:15:55.630 align:middle line:90% joy for joy when the time comes. 00:15:55.630 --> 00:15:58.140 align:middle line:90% 00:15:58.140 --> 00:16:01.680 align:middle line:84% From so very far away and after all this time 00:16:01.680 --> 00:16:05.670 align:middle line:84% you arrive, my mother's surname burning your mouth 00:16:05.670 --> 00:16:08.010 align:middle line:90% with its history. 00:16:08.010 --> 00:16:10.920 align:middle line:84% Chiseled into the bone of your forehead, 00:16:10.920 --> 00:16:15.000 align:middle line:84% lost in your eyes, your gestures. 00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:18.090 align:middle line:84% The name that made my mother my mother 00:16:18.090 --> 00:16:21.990 align:middle line:84% with her sometimes sorrowful whispering to herself, 00:16:21.990 --> 00:16:25.680 align:middle line:84% her habit lately of laughing long and hard. 00:16:25.680 --> 00:16:30.030 align:middle line:84% Her dancing hands that perhaps in ecstasy made 00:16:30.030 --> 00:16:34.710 align:middle line:84% love to open my door onto this world. 00:16:34.710 --> 00:16:38.880 align:middle line:84% The name that gave my grandfather his scholar's smile. 00:16:38.880 --> 00:16:42.630 align:middle line:84% The name that made him a descendent of bell makers, 00:16:42.630 --> 00:16:47.850 align:middle line:84% a fanatic for just the right ring and tone. 00:16:47.850 --> 00:16:51.660 align:middle line:84% The name that took my grandmother far away from her 00:16:51.660 --> 00:16:58.830 align:middle line:84% intended life with a jungle hammock, a fan, a flame tree. 00:16:58.830 --> 00:17:04.020 align:middle line:84% Away from a man who was her horizon, her very Earth and air 00:17:04.020 --> 00:17:07.710 align:middle line:84% and light and buried her here instead 00:17:07.710 --> 00:17:11.430 align:middle line:90% in the same grave as the name. 00:17:11.430 --> 00:17:16.770 align:middle line:84% Lying in an ancient pose on top of my grandfather. 00:17:16.770 --> 00:17:22.500 align:middle line:84% A gentle lie she had made herself learn to love. 00:17:22.500 --> 00:17:27.150 align:middle line:84% This is what you bring with this name, this thieving name, 00:17:27.150 --> 00:17:31.830 align:middle line:84% this bleeding name, this godly and worldly name. 00:17:31.830 --> 00:17:35.790 align:middle line:84% This name of charity, this name of music. 00:17:35.790 --> 00:17:39.240 align:middle line:84% This name preserved in far flung roses 00:17:39.240 --> 00:17:44.200 align:middle line:84% in your voice, your face, your work. 00:17:44.200 --> 00:17:47.670 align:middle line:84% This is what you call up out of me causing 00:17:47.670 --> 00:17:51.570 align:middle line:84% me to mourn and castigate and celebrate 00:17:51.570 --> 00:17:55.090 align:middle line:90% all in the same breath. 00:17:55.090 --> 00:18:00.090 align:middle line:84% How can you suggest that beauty hides itself? 00:18:00.090 --> 00:18:04.230 align:middle line:90% How can you say we have no past? 00:18:04.230 --> 00:18:09.780 align:middle line:84% You bringing this much in a name by chance 00:18:09.780 --> 00:18:12.670 align:middle line:90% through all these centuries. 00:18:12.670 --> 00:18:15.960 align:middle line:90% My cousin, my blood, my lover." 00:18:15.960 --> 00:18:27.300 align:middle line:90% 00:18:27.300 --> 00:18:29.820 align:middle line:90% And I think I'm going to read-- 00:18:29.820 --> 00:18:37.680 align:middle line:84% because it's almost a must to admit that one has 00:18:37.680 --> 00:18:41.970 align:middle line:90% a poem about writing poetry. 00:18:41.970 --> 00:18:45.210 align:middle line:84% We don't like to admit it, but we all have them. 00:18:45.210 --> 00:18:49.080 align:middle line:84% And we pretend that they're not that I think often. 00:18:49.080 --> 00:18:51.120 align:middle line:84% I pretended this wasn't that for a long time 00:18:51.120 --> 00:18:53.220 align:middle line:90% and then I finally faced it. 00:18:53.220 --> 00:18:55.740 align:middle line:90% And so that's what it is. 00:18:55.740 --> 00:18:57.330 align:middle line:90% Pardon me. 00:18:57.330 --> 00:19:02.810 align:middle line:84% There are some words of Spanish maybe I need to say to you here. 00:19:02.810 --> 00:19:08.910 align:middle line:84% Chicharras are cicadas and querido is beloved. 00:19:08.910 --> 00:19:11.400 align:middle line:84% The title of the poem is "Listen, Querido, 00:19:11.400 --> 00:19:14.850 align:middle line:84% They're Playing Our Song, or Summer Ritual with a Poet 00:19:14.850 --> 00:19:15.865 align:middle line:90% Friend." 00:19:15.865 --> 00:19:18.540 align:middle line:90% 00:19:18.540 --> 00:19:23.460 align:middle line:84% "You arrive every year with the worst heat always on one 00:19:23.460 --> 00:19:28.080 align:middle line:84% of those killer days when dogs won't come out from under cars 00:19:28.080 --> 00:19:30.870 align:middle line:90% after 9:00 in the morning. 00:19:30.870 --> 00:19:33.780 align:middle line:84% And even the neighborhood madman leaves off 00:19:33.780 --> 00:19:37.410 align:middle line:84% his battle with the gods and stands mostly 00:19:37.410 --> 00:19:40.200 align:middle line:84% in the thin shade of a phone pole 00:19:40.200 --> 00:19:45.390 align:middle line:84% with his arms folded and staring straight ahead. 00:19:45.390 --> 00:19:48.540 align:middle line:84% Always on one of those consuming afternoons 00:19:48.540 --> 00:19:52.170 align:middle line:84% when every nerve is uncovered and it 00:19:52.170 --> 00:19:55.620 align:middle line:90% burns the insides to breathe. 00:19:55.620 --> 00:19:59.850 align:middle line:84% And the chicharras keep saying over and over again 00:19:59.850 --> 00:20:08.130 align:middle line:84% how much has been lost or forgotten or left unsaid. 00:20:08.130 --> 00:20:11.130 align:middle line:84% And the only thing for it is to drink beer 00:20:11.130 --> 00:20:15.480 align:middle line:84% after beer in Salinas' air conditioned bar 00:20:15.480 --> 00:20:21.120 align:middle line:84% and play pool with strangers and make the best of it. 00:20:21.120 --> 00:20:23.890 align:middle line:90% But I digress. 00:20:23.890 --> 00:20:28.260 align:middle line:84% I was saying how you always show up in flames, a sheaf of poems 00:20:28.260 --> 00:20:30.540 align:middle line:90% hanging from your elbow. 00:20:30.540 --> 00:20:33.810 align:middle line:84% And how you ask your same few questions. 00:20:33.810 --> 00:20:38.400 align:middle line:84% And how your eyes always look away before the answers 00:20:38.400 --> 00:20:43.950 align:middle line:84% have a chance to stir up even a little breeze. 00:20:43.950 --> 00:20:46.470 align:middle line:90% Always nervous. 00:20:46.470 --> 00:20:49.620 align:middle line:84% Always a little fearful as though the heat 00:20:49.620 --> 00:20:53.520 align:middle line:84% might want to make an example of us 00:20:53.520 --> 00:20:59.190 align:middle line:84% for our attempts to master the spaces between feeling, as well 00:20:59.190 --> 00:21:02.640 align:middle line:90% as feeling itself. 00:21:02.640 --> 00:21:07.410 align:middle line:84% As though we had not had years of practice with holding 00:21:07.410 --> 00:21:11.400 align:middle line:84% our hearts in the fire and at the last minute, 00:21:11.400 --> 00:21:12.780 align:middle line:90% snatching them back." 00:21:12.780 --> 00:21:29.340 align:middle line:90% 00:21:29.340 --> 00:21:31.020 align:middle line:90% Back to some newer things. 00:21:31.020 --> 00:21:42.020 align:middle line:90% 00:21:42.020 --> 00:21:44.581 align:middle line:84% This piece is called "Glassworks." 00:21:44.581 --> 00:21:47.810 align:middle line:90% 00:21:47.810 --> 00:21:51.590 align:middle line:84% She's five when she sees the chain, when 00:21:51.590 --> 00:21:55.850 align:middle line:84% the grandmother threatens to hang her in a closet. 00:21:55.850 --> 00:21:59.270 align:middle line:84% Bury her under the prized hibiscus in a starched, 00:21:59.270 --> 00:22:05.570 align:middle line:84% white organdy dress that will stay clean forever. 00:22:05.570 --> 00:22:10.640 align:middle line:84% The father claims his rights, one robbed by day, another 00:22:10.640 --> 00:22:13.100 align:middle line:90% by night. 00:22:13.100 --> 00:22:17.210 align:middle line:84% The mother needs glasses to see up close, 00:22:17.210 --> 00:22:20.570 align:middle line:84% tells of her own closets in the dark 00:22:20.570 --> 00:22:26.030 align:middle line:84% after the father has sunk into dreamless sleep. 00:22:26.030 --> 00:22:30.050 align:middle line:90% The child doesn't dream either. 00:22:30.050 --> 00:22:33.590 align:middle line:84% Only concentric circles, white on black, 00:22:33.590 --> 00:22:40.790 align:middle line:84% swallowing her again, again until the stifled scream. 00:22:40.790 --> 00:22:44.330 align:middle line:84% Family circles, chains of nightshade. 00:22:44.330 --> 00:22:49.100 align:middle line:84% Make yourself very small, attract no attention, 00:22:49.100 --> 00:22:54.560 align:middle line:84% she whispers to the alley stones and bits of colored glass hidden 00:22:54.560 --> 00:22:55.340 align:middle line:90% in her pillow. 00:22:55.340 --> 00:22:57.930 align:middle line:90% 00:22:57.930 --> 00:23:02.280 align:middle line:84% Some days she plays under a green chenille bedspread draped 00:23:02.280 --> 00:23:05.505 align:middle line:90% over the scar, claw foot table. 00:23:05.505 --> 00:23:08.280 align:middle line:90% 00:23:08.280 --> 00:23:12.095 align:middle line:84% This is my house where what I can't see can't see me. 00:23:12.095 --> 00:23:15.250 align:middle line:90% 00:23:15.250 --> 00:23:20.800 align:middle line:84% The one doll has eyes that won't open, a cracked jaw, 00:23:20.800 --> 00:23:25.930 align:middle line:84% came in trade from Lake Surplus where the father installed glass 00:23:25.930 --> 00:23:29.350 align:middle line:90% for whatever he could get. 00:23:29.350 --> 00:23:31.990 align:middle line:84% Mother and child waited in a truck 00:23:31.990 --> 00:23:37.450 align:middle line:84% with old tools, rags, a broken ladder. 00:23:37.450 --> 00:23:41.470 align:middle line:84% The child imagines heat waves shimmering, 00:23:41.470 --> 00:23:48.100 align:middle line:84% herself at the edge of the lake, then in the lake, a slow walk-- 00:23:48.100 --> 00:23:54.220 align:middle line:84% waist, shoulders, neck-- her gaze fixed on Our Lady 00:23:54.220 --> 00:24:00.310 align:middle line:84% in the church tower who hears her vow to break the circle. 00:24:00.310 --> 00:24:04.120 align:middle line:90% Have no baby. 00:24:04.120 --> 00:24:06.910 align:middle line:84% Thirty years later, still swimming 00:24:06.910 --> 00:24:10.210 align:middle line:84% against the current of sick blood, 00:24:10.210 --> 00:24:14.590 align:middle line:84% she clutches a piece of broken glass. 00:24:14.590 --> 00:24:20.680 align:middle line:84% She tells the doctors the first glass was formed by lightning, 00:24:20.680 --> 00:24:24.520 align:middle line:90% that she has no last name. 00:24:24.520 --> 00:24:26.335 align:middle line:90% They may call her Ophelia." 00:24:26.335 --> 00:24:37.140 align:middle line:90% 00:24:37.140 --> 00:24:40.710 align:middle line:84% In thinking about doing this reading, 00:24:40.710 --> 00:24:44.580 align:middle line:84% I was having a hard time trying to come up 00:24:44.580 --> 00:24:52.160 align:middle line:84% with some things that wouldn't make everybody depressed. 00:24:52.160 --> 00:24:56.340 align:middle line:84% But I have to say, I don't have just a whole lot of those. 00:24:56.340 --> 00:24:57.000 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:24:57.000 --> 00:25:00.450 align:middle line:84% It's the dictates of experience, perhaps. 00:25:00.450 --> 00:25:07.080 align:middle line:84% But I do hope that there is some rescue and redemption involved 00:25:07.080 --> 00:25:08.010 align:middle line:90% in some of the pieces. 00:25:08.010 --> 00:25:13.500 align:middle line:84% And this piece was trying to do that four years, I want to say. 00:25:13.500 --> 00:25:16.950 align:middle line:84% For those of you who are writing, 00:25:16.950 --> 00:25:22.110 align:middle line:84% you know that a piece can start and not become itself 00:25:22.110 --> 00:25:25.320 align:middle line:84% no matter how much you want it to or how hard you work on it. 00:25:25.320 --> 00:25:29.430 align:middle line:84% And then suddenly one day it does become itself 00:25:29.430 --> 00:25:32.640 align:middle line:84% and you're almost not in it, which is kind of nice when 00:25:32.640 --> 00:25:34.500 align:middle line:90% that happens. 00:25:34.500 --> 00:25:38.940 align:middle line:84% And this was a piece that I was trying to write with, for, 00:25:38.940 --> 00:25:42.510 align:middle line:84% on behalf of, through my grandmother for years 00:25:42.510 --> 00:25:44.950 align:middle line:90% and it finally became itself. 00:25:44.950 --> 00:25:48.510 align:middle line:84% It's called "Women Talk of Flowers at Dusk." 00:25:48.510 --> 00:25:52.870 align:middle line:84% And it's set in San Antonio in 1976, 00:25:52.870 --> 00:25:54.510 align:middle line:84% which is the year my grandmother died 00:25:54.510 --> 00:26:00.700 align:middle line:90% and Mérida, Yucatán in 1909. 00:26:00.700 --> 00:26:04.210 align:middle line:84% "Some things can only be spoken in the dark, 00:26:04.210 --> 00:26:08.530 align:middle line:84% you'd say each time you told about Dolores, 00:26:08.530 --> 00:26:11.920 align:middle line:90% a name that means pain. 00:26:11.920 --> 00:26:15.250 align:middle line:84% We'd sit in dimming light at the chipped kitchen 00:26:15.250 --> 00:26:21.160 align:middle line:84% table where the past showed in layers of old paint. 00:26:21.160 --> 00:26:29.080 align:middle line:84% Exile from Mexico, your forced marriage, the Great Depression. 00:26:29.080 --> 00:26:33.280 align:middle line:84% You with a cigarette and a shot of Paul Jones. 00:26:33.280 --> 00:26:35.950 align:middle line:84% A brittle voice telling how your mother 00:26:35.950 --> 00:26:39.460 align:middle line:84% died in the half light of cheap rented 00:26:39.460 --> 00:26:43.540 align:middle line:90% rooms in the Turks' barrio. 00:26:43.540 --> 00:26:48.610 align:middle line:84% She was a nurse who recognized the blood she coughed but called 00:26:48.610 --> 00:26:52.950 align:middle line:90% it roses to ease your fears. 00:26:52.950 --> 00:26:57.280 align:middle line:90% Huacha was 12 and you 10. 00:26:57.280 --> 00:26:59.800 align:middle line:90% Even then, you led. 00:26:59.800 --> 00:27:05.020 align:middle line:84% You hid in the jacaranda and fierce with tears, 00:27:05.020 --> 00:27:09.160 align:middle line:84% barred your grandfather when he arrived too late 00:27:09.160 --> 00:27:13.600 align:middle line:84% in his fancy carriage and fine frock coat. 00:27:13.600 --> 00:27:18.220 align:middle line:84% Usted no tiene porqué estar aquí. 00:27:18.220 --> 00:27:21.970 align:middle line:90% No right to come here. 00:27:21.970 --> 00:27:25.810 align:middle line:84% You would always despise the jacaranda. 00:27:25.810 --> 00:27:27.850 align:middle line:90% Mi madre muerta. 00:27:27.850 --> 00:27:28.350 align:middle line:90% Muerta. 00:27:28.350 --> 00:27:29.050 align:middle line:90% Y él? 00:27:29.050 --> 00:27:32.020 align:middle line:90% 00:27:32.020 --> 00:27:38.140 align:middle line:84% He calmly sent for pins to hold the sheet tight to the body. 00:27:38.140 --> 00:27:40.810 align:middle line:84% The first Indian doctor in Mérida, 00:27:40.810 --> 00:27:44.680 align:middle line:84% he'd raised his daughter to be a lady. 00:27:44.680 --> 00:27:48.670 align:middle line:84% Not his fault she'd come to this. 00:27:48.670 --> 00:27:52.660 align:middle line:84% He wouldn't look at her wasted corpse, 00:27:52.660 --> 00:27:57.610 align:middle line:84% the flowers framing her face, the borrowed crucifix. 00:27:57.610 --> 00:28:00.910 align:middle line:84% She'd refused to stay well married, 00:28:00.910 --> 00:28:05.140 align:middle line:84% would not respect his choice and turn a deaf ear, 00:28:05.140 --> 00:28:11.860 align:middle line:84% blind eye, the other cheek to a husband cajoling conquests 00:28:11.860 --> 00:28:14.410 align:middle line:90% behind palm fans. 00:28:14.410 --> 00:28:18.640 align:middle line:90% His seed spent in every street. 00:28:18.640 --> 00:28:23.200 align:middle line:84% Instead, she'd made her own life in this damp barrio, 00:28:23.200 --> 00:28:28.820 align:middle line:84% nursing a company of women, the poor, everything her father 00:28:28.820 --> 00:28:32.380 align:middle line:90% struggled to forget. 00:28:32.380 --> 00:28:35.380 align:middle line:84% The funeral wagon stopped at the corner, 00:28:35.380 --> 00:28:38.890 align:middle line:90% too wide for the narrow alley. 00:28:38.890 --> 00:28:44.650 align:middle line:84% You, your sister, some Indian women wept at the gate. 00:28:44.650 --> 00:28:49.120 align:middle line:84% Only men were allowed at the grave. 00:28:49.120 --> 00:28:54.640 align:middle line:84% But he couldn't go and couldn't escape the wild marigold that 00:28:54.640 --> 00:28:57.640 align:middle line:84% fell from her temple as they hoisted her 00:28:57.640 --> 00:29:00.850 align:middle line:90% on to the pauper's dray. 00:29:00.850 --> 00:29:04.090 align:middle line:84% That sight was a slap, Grandmother, 00:29:04.090 --> 00:29:10.360 align:middle line:84% that stung his face then and every time you told the story. 00:29:10.360 --> 00:29:15.010 align:middle line:84% Even now, the flame of that marigold is in me. 00:29:15.010 --> 00:29:22.700 align:middle line:84% You gone these 15 years, Dolores almost a century. 00:29:22.700 --> 00:29:28.840 align:middle line:84% So too, it's come to me to heal the roses in the blood. 00:29:28.840 --> 00:29:33.490 align:middle line:84% A need to let go of the sins of the fathers, 00:29:33.490 --> 00:29:37.840 align:middle line:84% open the dark vaults of the heart. 00:29:37.840 --> 00:29:45.280 align:middle line:84% Let me begin here in lives that are and are not my own. 00:29:45.280 --> 00:29:51.455 align:middle line:84% To forgive even the jacaranda that blooms and blooms without 00:29:51.455 --> 00:29:51.955 align:middle line:90% mercy." 00:29:51.955 --> 00:30:02.670 align:middle line:90% 00:30:02.670 --> 00:30:04.740 align:middle line:84% I want to read this piece because it 00:30:04.740 --> 00:30:11.500 align:middle line:84% comes from the Greek side of my heritage. 00:30:11.500 --> 00:30:17.790 align:middle line:84% And it is untrue, which is to say 00:30:17.790 --> 00:30:21.150 align:middle line:84% I saw a man do this and then later made 00:30:21.150 --> 00:30:23.840 align:middle line:90% up the reason why he'd done it. 00:30:23.840 --> 00:30:26.211 align:middle line:84% It's called "Insufficient Light." 00:30:26.211 --> 00:30:29.510 align:middle line:90% 00:30:29.510 --> 00:30:33.560 align:middle line:84% "Under the stairs, the light is going faster than 00:30:33.560 --> 00:30:36.680 align:middle line:84% in the courtyard where Yianni strikes sand 00:30:36.680 --> 00:30:42.320 align:middle line:84% from the hems of his trousers and only that briefly knows 00:30:42.320 --> 00:30:46.430 align:middle line:84% the woman is weeping in the shadows. 00:30:46.430 --> 00:30:50.510 align:middle line:84% That her tears are partly his doing. 00:30:50.510 --> 00:30:55.580 align:middle line:84% That the light's going is not but is somehow related. 00:30:55.580 --> 00:30:58.230 align:middle line:90% 00:30:58.230 --> 00:31:02.220 align:middle line:84% Dusk catches in the crook of her elbow, 00:31:02.220 --> 00:31:06.390 align:middle line:84% in the sleeve she raises to wipe her face, 00:31:06.390 --> 00:31:16.170 align:middle line:84% embracing odors of fish, basil, roses hard won from rocky soil. 00:31:16.170 --> 00:31:21.180 align:middle line:84% But now the sand is off his clothes, Yianni turns away, 00:31:21.180 --> 00:31:23.970 align:middle line:84% demands the coffee be set to boil, 00:31:23.970 --> 00:31:25.610 align:middle line:90% their little bread divided. 00:31:25.610 --> 00:31:28.760 align:middle line:90% 00:31:28.760 --> 00:31:35.030 align:middle line:84% Years later, Yianni sits alone in the courtyard at dusk. 00:31:35.030 --> 00:31:38.240 align:middle line:84% Gazing at a cat near the boats, he suddenly 00:31:38.240 --> 00:31:41.840 align:middle line:84% recalls how the woman wept and is 00:31:41.840 --> 00:31:48.170 align:middle line:84% confused by the terrible bellow that rises out of him. 00:31:48.170 --> 00:31:53.000 align:middle line:84% The way he smashes his cane against the whitewashed wall 00:31:53.000 --> 00:31:55.670 align:middle line:90% under the stairs. 00:31:55.670 --> 00:32:00.470 align:middle line:84% His wanting to stroke her hair in the going light." 00:32:00.470 --> 00:32:14.630 align:middle line:90% 00:32:14.630 --> 00:32:19.010 align:middle line:84% I have a friend in Texas who is a painter. 00:32:19.010 --> 00:32:26.270 align:middle line:84% And about five years ago now, we went 00:32:26.270 --> 00:32:29.510 align:middle line:84% to look for his mother's grave, which he had not seen 00:32:29.510 --> 00:32:30.785 align:middle line:90% since he was four years old. 00:32:30.785 --> 00:32:35.050 align:middle line:90% 00:32:35.050 --> 00:32:39.982 align:middle line:84% And that was an amazing and important experience 00:32:39.982 --> 00:32:40.940 align:middle line:90% to share with somebody. 00:32:40.940 --> 00:32:45.290 align:middle line:84% It was on the Day of the Dead, which maybe you celebrate here. 00:32:45.290 --> 00:32:47.990 align:middle line:84% Do you have Day of the Dead celebrations? 00:32:47.990 --> 00:32:53.570 align:middle line:84% And families go to the cemeteries-- 00:32:53.570 --> 00:32:56.180 align:middle line:84% Latino families primarily go to the cemeteries 00:32:56.180 --> 00:32:59.780 align:middle line:84% and hang with their dead all night. 00:32:59.780 --> 00:33:02.960 align:middle line:84% And drink and eat and tell stories. 00:33:02.960 --> 00:33:05.810 align:middle line:90% 00:33:05.810 --> 00:33:07.760 align:middle line:84% So we had shared that experience. 00:33:07.760 --> 00:33:11.900 align:middle line:84% And then about a year ago, I got a postcard from him 00:33:11.900 --> 00:33:13.310 align:middle line:90% that referred to that. 00:33:13.310 --> 00:33:17.030 align:middle line:84% And then this poem came out of receiving that postcard. 00:33:17.030 --> 00:33:20.810 align:middle line:90% 00:33:20.810 --> 00:33:23.780 align:middle line:84% It's a little difficult to read because much of it 00:33:23.780 --> 00:33:27.560 align:middle line:84% is spoken in his voice so I'll do these little signs that 00:33:27.560 --> 00:33:30.770 align:middle line:84% will indicate to you that I am not speaking but he 00:33:30.770 --> 00:33:35.120 align:middle line:90% is when the voice changes. 00:33:35.120 --> 00:33:40.130 align:middle line:84% It's called "Flowers and Umbrellas on a Texas Beach: 00:33:40.130 --> 00:33:44.630 align:middle line:90% Postcard from a Painter." 00:33:44.630 --> 00:33:46.372 align:middle line:90% It's for R. Anguiano. 00:33:46.372 --> 00:33:49.150 align:middle line:90% 00:33:49.150 --> 00:33:53.920 align:middle line:84% "Slick tourist photo, umbrellas and sling chairs 00:33:53.920 --> 00:33:56.530 align:middle line:90% in neat royal blue. 00:33:56.530 --> 00:34:03.340 align:middle line:84% Everyone faces the sea except one lone man, unsheltered, 00:34:03.340 --> 00:34:10.480 align:middle line:84% thrown down between water's edge and flowers rioting foreground. 00:34:10.480 --> 00:34:15.219 align:middle line:84% One lone man daring the blaze to do more than it already has, 00:34:15.219 --> 00:34:18.730 align:middle line:90% looking it in the eye. 00:34:18.730 --> 00:34:25.929 align:middle line:84% He's almost lost in masses of flowers, umbrellas in reverse. 00:34:25.929 --> 00:34:31.719 align:middle line:84% Thin-skinned trumpets blown inside out, hot pink 00:34:31.719 --> 00:34:35.650 align:middle line:90% with screaming red throats. 00:34:35.650 --> 00:34:39.850 align:middle line:84% Morning glory shaped, but it's high noon. 00:34:39.850 --> 00:34:42.699 align:middle line:90% Can you see it? 00:34:42.699 --> 00:34:47.290 align:middle line:84% Vines all right, but low to the ground, no place to climb, 00:34:47.290 --> 00:34:52.840 align:middle line:84% spilling across the dunes, froth on a dry ocean. 00:34:52.840 --> 00:34:55.450 align:middle line:90% He can deal with contradictions. 00:34:55.450 --> 00:34:58.120 align:middle line:90% 00:34:58.120 --> 00:35:04.210 align:middle line:84% Up close, the leaves are fat and succulent, seem gentle. 00:35:04.210 --> 00:35:11.470 align:middle line:84% The man remembers moiré air outside Cotulla that day 00:35:11.470 --> 00:35:14.020 align:middle line:90% full of heat waves. 00:35:14.020 --> 00:35:19.520 align:middle line:84% Air that made you see things, promised water, love, 00:35:19.520 --> 00:35:25.870 align:middle line:84% safety when there was nothing but brush country. 00:35:25.870 --> 00:35:29.860 align:middle line:84% We didn't know to call it moiré then. 00:35:29.860 --> 00:35:35.500 align:middle line:84% Didn't think it was fancy air, just hell. 00:35:35.500 --> 00:35:40.360 align:middle line:84% Americanos said hotter 'n spit on a griddle. 00:35:40.360 --> 00:35:49.450 align:middle line:84% We said más calor qu'el quinto infierno, Dante's fifth circle. 00:35:49.450 --> 00:35:53.320 align:middle line:84% We didn't know Dante either, that's just what we always 00:35:53.320 --> 00:35:55.480 align:middle line:90% called it. 00:35:55.480 --> 00:35:58.510 align:middle line:84% Cotulla is two hours from the sea. 00:35:58.510 --> 00:36:03.350 align:middle line:84% The rare curve in the flat out road took him by surprise. 00:36:03.350 --> 00:36:07.840 align:middle line:90% He wasn't from around there. 00:36:07.840 --> 00:36:12.610 align:middle line:84% My mother made a red star in the windshield. 00:36:12.610 --> 00:36:16.090 align:middle line:90% He died too. 00:36:16.090 --> 00:36:21.040 align:middle line:84% I've tried to paint a big '57 Olds gone soft as a desert 00:36:21.040 --> 00:36:22.150 align:middle line:90% flower-- 00:36:22.150 --> 00:36:26.980 align:middle line:84% fat, lushly turned, and seeming gentle. 00:36:26.980 --> 00:36:30.370 align:middle line:90% Can you see it? 00:36:30.370 --> 00:36:33.340 align:middle line:84% He had touched me in the wrong places. 00:36:33.340 --> 00:36:41.350 align:middle line:84% Alcohol, his own childhood, my real father long gone. 00:36:41.350 --> 00:36:46.540 align:middle line:84% I never told because she would sing when this one came around. 00:36:46.540 --> 00:36:50.320 align:middle line:90% Sing and paint her face. 00:36:50.320 --> 00:36:51.515 align:middle line:90% I barely remember. 00:36:51.515 --> 00:36:54.490 align:middle line:90% 00:36:54.490 --> 00:36:56.830 align:middle line:84% Closest I've come to her is a painting 00:36:56.830 --> 00:37:02.800 align:middle line:84% I did from a snapshot, one my grandfather took. 00:37:02.800 --> 00:37:05.620 align:middle line:90% Cheap, rayon dress. 00:37:05.620 --> 00:37:08.350 align:middle line:90% A flower in her hair. 00:37:08.350 --> 00:37:13.090 align:middle line:84% An old tire slanting in the background. 00:37:13.090 --> 00:37:17.350 align:middle line:90% The runt dog must have barked. 00:37:17.350 --> 00:37:22.840 align:middle line:84% I glued blue and green sequins around her, floated it all in 00:37:22.840 --> 00:37:27.610 align:middle line:84% thick tropical leaves, nothing like Cotulla. 00:37:27.610 --> 00:37:30.820 align:middle line:90% Can you see it? 00:37:30.820 --> 00:37:34.870 align:middle line:84% Then that day at San Fernando, Día de los Muertos, 00:37:34.870 --> 00:37:38.020 align:middle line:84% everybody with their marigolds and kids, 00:37:38.020 --> 00:37:43.990 align:middle line:84% oval portraits of the dead embedded in the headstones. 00:37:43.990 --> 00:37:47.230 align:middle line:90% I thought we'd never find her. 00:37:47.230 --> 00:37:52.735 align:middle line:84% All those years without seeing the grave, since I was four. 00:37:52.735 --> 00:37:56.770 align:middle line:90% 00:37:56.770 --> 00:37:59.920 align:middle line:90% The blue umbrellas side by side. 00:37:59.920 --> 00:38:02.890 align:middle line:90% The people looking away. 00:38:02.890 --> 00:38:06.640 align:middle line:84% They are a dotted line on the horizon, 00:38:06.640 --> 00:38:13.180 align:middle line:84% separating heaven from what he keeps trying to make out. 00:38:13.180 --> 00:38:16.960 align:middle line:84% I've done everything without her. 00:38:16.960 --> 00:38:19.210 align:middle line:90% Can you see it? 00:38:19.210 --> 00:38:21.440 align:middle line:90% Are you there? 00:38:21.440 --> 00:38:23.815 align:middle line:84% Let me know if you come to Texas." 00:38:23.815 --> 00:38:37.540 align:middle line:90% 00:38:37.540 --> 00:38:38.290 align:middle line:90% Let's see. 00:38:38.290 --> 00:38:40.240 align:middle line:90% I'm bringing myself down here. 00:38:40.240 --> 00:38:43.840 align:middle line:90% 00:38:43.840 --> 00:38:45.760 align:middle line:84% We need a little bit of lightness. 00:38:45.760 --> 00:38:48.670 align:middle line:90% 00:38:48.670 --> 00:38:52.420 align:middle line:90% This piece is a border piece. 00:38:52.420 --> 00:38:56.770 align:middle line:84% There's a whole border culture in South Texas, 00:38:56.770 --> 00:39:01.600 align:middle line:84% as I'm sure there is here, that participates in how 00:39:01.600 --> 00:39:02.900 align:middle line:90% you go across the border. 00:39:02.900 --> 00:39:03.910 align:middle line:90% It's a big deal. 00:39:03.910 --> 00:39:05.590 align:middle line:84% Everybody has their little rituals. 00:39:05.590 --> 00:39:08.410 align:middle line:84% And in Texas, one of the rituals is 00:39:08.410 --> 00:39:14.830 align:middle line:84% that we keep a lot of coins in the ashtray. 00:39:14.830 --> 00:39:17.090 align:middle line:84% That's including whether cigarette butts are in there 00:39:17.090 --> 00:39:17.590 align:middle line:90% or not. 00:39:17.590 --> 00:39:19.840 align:middle line:84% People keep coins in the ashtray because that's what 00:39:19.840 --> 00:39:22.600 align:middle line:90% you give to cross the border. 00:39:22.600 --> 00:39:28.270 align:middle line:84% And so that's what started this piece, that image. 00:39:28.270 --> 00:39:31.180 align:middle line:84% It's called "Borderline: Brownsville and Matamoros." 00:39:31.180 --> 00:39:32.395 align:middle line:90% It's for Oscar Ramírez. 00:39:32.395 --> 00:39:36.240 align:middle line:90% 00:39:36.240 --> 00:39:40.830 align:middle line:84% "South Texas car ashtrays are kept full of change. 00:39:40.830 --> 00:39:45.660 align:middle line:84% Coins to pave the way across the river and back. 00:39:45.660 --> 00:39:48.870 align:middle line:84% Going either direction, we fix our eyes 00:39:48.870 --> 00:39:53.340 align:middle line:84% on that elusive spot somewhere up ahead 00:39:53.340 --> 00:39:56.520 align:middle line:90% where everything comes together. 00:39:56.520 --> 00:40:00.360 align:middle line:90% The kind of border we all want. 00:40:00.360 --> 00:40:05.430 align:middle line:84% Like old Yousuf Assad in the dying downtown who 00:40:05.430 --> 00:40:09.120 align:middle line:84% keeps selling cheap plastic lace Last Supper 00:40:09.120 --> 00:40:13.440 align:middle line:90% tablecloths to send money home. 00:40:13.440 --> 00:40:17.670 align:middle line:84% The matter of a sister who never married. 00:40:17.670 --> 00:40:20.820 align:middle line:84% Here he lives out his summer figs, 00:40:20.820 --> 00:40:27.480 align:middle line:84% the stunted cedar at his door, force feeding them on memory. 00:40:27.480 --> 00:40:30.900 align:middle line:90% Try telling him about borders. 00:40:30.900 --> 00:40:35.190 align:middle line:84% That someday you look across the distance, and sure enough, 00:40:35.190 --> 00:40:42.180 align:middle line:84% the big things are closer, the small things farther away. 00:40:42.180 --> 00:40:45.570 align:middle line:84% He wants to believe you, has staked 00:40:45.570 --> 00:40:52.630 align:middle line:84% a lifetime on the possibility of just this perspective. 00:40:52.630 --> 00:40:57.520 align:middle line:84% Same as the rest of us at Pappas' godforsaken dustbin 00:40:57.520 --> 00:40:59.560 align:middle line:90% of a cafe. 00:40:59.560 --> 00:41:03.730 align:middle line:84% All the pies raisin until we look hard 00:41:03.730 --> 00:41:07.330 align:middle line:90% and see the flies move. 00:41:07.330 --> 00:41:15.250 align:middle line:84% We look hard for all the good it does then go on faith. 00:41:15.250 --> 00:41:19.120 align:middle line:84% I tell you, brother, there are crossings everywhere. 00:41:19.120 --> 00:41:22.690 align:middle line:84% Places where we're made to show ourselves, 00:41:22.690 --> 00:41:27.130 align:middle line:84% act like we know what we're doing. 00:41:27.130 --> 00:41:32.170 align:middle line:84% So great is our need that if we got our hands on the stars, 00:41:32.170 --> 00:41:36.160 align:middle line:84% we'd bite down on them like coin. 00:41:36.160 --> 00:41:39.820 align:middle line:84% And even if they proved counterfeit, 00:41:39.820 --> 00:41:44.185 align:middle line:84% tender their wholesale brightness for safe passage." 00:41:44.185 --> 00:41:49.970 align:middle line:90% 00:41:49.970 --> 00:41:55.700 align:middle line:84% And I'm going to read just two more. 00:41:55.700 --> 00:41:59.960 align:middle line:90% 00:41:59.960 --> 00:42:02.990 align:middle line:84% This is the other piece that I referred 00:42:02.990 --> 00:42:06.350 align:middle line:84% to earlier that participates in that same kind of obsession 00:42:06.350 --> 00:42:10.820 align:middle line:84% with the intersections of personal and public history, 00:42:10.820 --> 00:42:13.520 align:middle line:90% collective history. 00:42:13.520 --> 00:42:15.050 align:middle line:84% I don't think there's any language 00:42:15.050 --> 00:42:19.070 align:middle line:90% I need to explain to you here. 00:42:19.070 --> 00:42:20.120 align:middle line:90% Maybe the ocarina. 00:42:20.120 --> 00:42:25.100 align:middle line:84% The ocarina is a clay instrument, musical instrument. 00:42:25.100 --> 00:42:28.040 align:middle line:84% It's called "Pumpkins by the Sea" 00:42:28.040 --> 00:42:31.730 align:middle line:84% and it has an epigraph from Gerald Stern. 00:42:31.730 --> 00:42:34.115 align:middle line:84% "What does it mean, one life only?" 00:42:34.115 --> 00:42:40.510 align:middle line:90% 00:42:40.510 --> 00:42:46.660 align:middle line:84% "On an incline between sleep and waking, a dream snags, 00:42:46.660 --> 00:42:50.710 align:middle line:84% confused in the ripples and eddies of a window filling 00:42:50.710 --> 00:42:54.250 align:middle line:90% with pink and gray dawn. 00:42:54.250 --> 00:42:59.050 align:middle line:84% The house is old, it's glass original and given 00:42:59.050 --> 00:43:04.620 align:middle line:90% to warps, bubbles, bends. 00:43:04.620 --> 00:43:08.895 align:middle line:84% It is a year ago on a wide bluff over the sea, 00:43:08.895 --> 00:43:12.300 align:middle line:84% a farm carpeted with pumpkins that 00:43:12.300 --> 00:43:18.990 align:middle line:84% seem to spill off the edge, abundant as molten lava. 00:43:18.990 --> 00:43:23.940 align:middle line:90% We wander, we choose. 00:43:23.940 --> 00:43:28.050 align:middle line:84% How the wind awakens waves in the shammy-colored grass 00:43:28.050 --> 00:43:33.360 align:middle line:84% is different from the way it chisels the sea. 00:43:33.360 --> 00:43:36.030 align:middle line:84% Different from the way it lifts our hair 00:43:36.030 --> 00:43:40.335 align:middle line:84% or suddenly scatters clouds of tiny birds on the beach. 00:43:40.335 --> 00:43:43.110 align:middle line:90% 00:43:43.110 --> 00:43:45.690 align:middle line:84% Some pumpkins are small and yellow, 00:43:45.690 --> 00:43:48.600 align:middle line:84% and in a trick of perception, the mind's eye 00:43:48.600 --> 00:43:54.700 align:middle line:84% joins them to exhausted Beograd's beat-up taxis. 00:43:54.700 --> 00:44:00.150 align:middle line:84% The only bright spots left in that gray city. 00:44:00.150 --> 00:44:05.040 align:middle line:90% Dream does this or nightmare. 00:44:05.040 --> 00:44:10.140 align:middle line:84% An old man's faltering voice last week from Dubrovnik. 00:44:10.140 --> 00:44:13.630 align:middle line:84% 80 years in the house where he was born. 00:44:13.630 --> 00:44:19.410 align:middle line:84% Now he boards the last boat out, to where? 00:44:19.410 --> 00:44:25.890 align:middle line:84% His milky eyes could just make out guns pointed by countrymen. 00:44:25.890 --> 00:44:29.280 align:middle line:90% Born in other houses, it's true. 00:44:29.280 --> 00:44:35.430 align:middle line:84% Speaking another tongue, but human, no? 00:44:35.430 --> 00:44:39.060 align:middle line:84% We have learned nothing, he says, 00:44:39.060 --> 00:44:45.420 align:middle line:84% straining for a last glimpse of the medieval walls. 00:44:45.420 --> 00:44:48.330 align:middle line:84% In the field by the sea, there are pumpkins 00:44:48.330 --> 00:44:51.810 align:middle line:84% orange as the banks of marigolds flanking 00:44:51.810 --> 00:44:56.010 align:middle line:90% my altar each Day of the Dead. 00:44:56.010 --> 00:44:58.680 align:middle line:90% Photographs of the missing. 00:44:58.680 --> 00:45:04.950 align:middle line:84% Their favorite food and drink, friends and family up all night 00:45:04.950 --> 00:45:09.120 align:middle line:90% to pray and remember. 00:45:09.120 --> 00:45:12.870 align:middle line:84% I hand you a stout, heart-shaped fruit 00:45:12.870 --> 00:45:17.050 align:middle line:90% as I did that day a year ago. 00:45:17.050 --> 00:45:20.700 align:middle line:84% But in the queer logic of dream, the ripe flesh 00:45:20.700 --> 00:45:23.730 align:middle line:90% turns mineral when you touch it. 00:45:23.730 --> 00:45:29.250 align:middle line:84% And after a bitter kiss, sweet when we lived it, 00:45:29.250 --> 00:45:35.010 align:middle line:84% all the pumpkins have become tombstones. 00:45:35.010 --> 00:45:39.210 align:middle line:84% This will always be ours, you say. 00:45:39.210 --> 00:45:44.540 align:middle line:84% And I wonder if you mean the heart, as I trusted you did 00:45:44.540 --> 00:45:50.420 align:middle line:90% then, or the harvest of stones. 00:45:50.420 --> 00:45:53.870 align:middle line:84% At the window, I watch doves string 00:45:53.870 --> 00:45:58.400 align:middle line:84% their hammocks of flight between eaves and feeder, 00:45:58.400 --> 00:46:03.050 align:middle line:84% binding grief to need, need to grief. 00:46:03.050 --> 00:46:10.400 align:middle line:84% Pink feet lost against pink sky, their bodies gray tears. 00:46:10.400 --> 00:46:15.530 align:middle line:84% No, it's their sound that mourns the hollow clay 00:46:15.530 --> 00:46:18.770 align:middle line:90% lament of an ocarina. 00:46:18.770 --> 00:46:22.400 align:middle line:90% The tears are mine. 00:46:22.400 --> 00:46:28.130 align:middle line:84% Or are the doves another ruse of the flawed glass? 00:46:28.130 --> 00:46:32.300 align:middle line:84% Have I even gone to the window or am I still here 00:46:32.300 --> 00:46:35.360 align:middle line:90% under a scrap cloth quilt? 00:46:35.360 --> 00:46:40.880 align:middle line:84% Wet cheeks colder than the unheated room. 00:46:40.880 --> 00:46:46.160 align:middle line:90% We wander, we choose. 00:46:46.160 --> 00:46:50.720 align:middle line:84% The lazy eye you've battled since childhood veers 00:46:50.720 --> 00:47:00.160 align:middle line:84% even more off [AUDIO OUT] tilts at its own history. 00:47:00.160 --> 00:47:04.450 align:middle line:90% What are we to make of it? 00:47:04.450 --> 00:47:09.340 align:middle line:84% Small boy whose sleep still shrieks at the cold cast iron 00:47:09.340 --> 00:47:12.250 align:middle line:90% tub where they beat him. 00:47:12.250 --> 00:47:18.310 align:middle line:84% Tell me this, what is the clearest view through war? 00:47:18.310 --> 00:47:32.200 align:middle line:84% [AUDIO OUT] need to say we've learned nothing." 00:47:32.200 --> 00:47:37.620 align:middle line:90% 00:47:37.620 --> 00:47:41.730 align:middle line:84% And last, I'm going to read a poem for child 00:47:41.730 --> 00:47:44.610 align:middle line:90% I saw in San Antonio. 00:47:44.610 --> 00:47:46.823 align:middle line:90% 00:47:46.823 --> 00:47:48.240 align:middle line:84% The Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center 00:47:48.240 --> 00:47:51.690 align:middle line:84% is right across from an elementary school in the barrio. 00:47:51.690 --> 00:47:56.760 align:middle line:84% And this little boy came out one day on the last day of school 00:47:56.760 --> 00:48:02.880 align:middle line:84% and did a remarkable little dance with his school papers. 00:48:02.880 --> 00:48:06.000 align:middle line:84% And as a matter of fact, I went and collected the papers 00:48:06.000 --> 00:48:07.800 align:middle line:90% afterward. 00:48:07.800 --> 00:48:11.340 align:middle line:84% And so a lot of the material in the poem 00:48:11.340 --> 00:48:15.660 align:middle line:84% is actually from his papers, which I still have to this day. 00:48:15.660 --> 00:48:17.970 align:middle line:84% I gave him the name of David Talamántez 00:48:17.970 --> 00:48:20.400 align:middle line:90% although that wasn't his name. 00:48:20.400 --> 00:48:25.770 align:middle line:84% And there are places where he is writing. 00:48:25.770 --> 00:48:28.890 align:middle line:84% And again, I'll use a little signal 00:48:28.890 --> 00:48:30.465 align:middle line:84% to indicate that it's his language. 00:48:30.465 --> 00:48:33.400 align:middle line:90% 00:48:33.400 --> 00:48:39.560 align:middle line:84% "David Talamántez on the Last Day of Second Grade." 00:48:39.560 --> 00:48:42.530 align:middle line:84% "David Talamántez, whose mother is at work, 00:48:42.530 --> 00:48:45.800 align:middle line:84% leaves his mark everywhere in the schoolyard. 00:48:45.800 --> 00:48:48.530 align:middle line:84% Tosses pages from a thick sheaf of 00:48:48.530 --> 00:48:52.220 align:middle line:84% lined paper high in the air one by one. 00:48:52.220 --> 00:48:55.940 align:middle line:84% Watches them catch on the teacher's car bumpers, 00:48:55.940 --> 00:49:02.120 align:middle line:84% drift into the chalky narrow shade of the water fountain. 00:49:02.120 --> 00:49:06.320 align:middle line:84% One last batch stapled together he rolls tight 00:49:06.320 --> 00:49:10.010 align:middle line:84% into a makeshift horn through which he shouts 00:49:10.010 --> 00:49:16.430 align:middle line:84% David and David, yes before hurling it away hard 00:49:16.430 --> 00:49:21.180 align:middle line:84% and darting across Brazos Street against the light. 00:49:21.180 --> 00:49:23.550 align:middle line:84% The little sag of head and shoulders 00:49:23.550 --> 00:49:28.230 align:middle line:84% when safe on the other side, he kicks the can in the gutter 00:49:28.230 --> 00:49:32.280 align:middle line:90% and wanders toward home. 00:49:32.280 --> 00:49:37.140 align:middle line:84% David Talamántez believes birds are warm-blooded. 00:49:37.140 --> 00:49:39.510 align:middle line:84% The way they are quick in the air 00:49:39.510 --> 00:49:44.350 align:middle line:84% and give out long strings of complicated music, 00:49:44.350 --> 00:49:50.850 align:middle line:84% different all the time, not like cats and dogs. 00:49:50.850 --> 00:49:54.510 align:middle line:84% For this, he was marked down in science, 00:49:54.510 --> 00:49:57.690 align:middle line:84% and for putting his name in the wrong place 00:49:57.690 --> 00:50:00.900 align:middle line:84% on the right with the date instead of on the left 00:50:00.900 --> 00:50:03.900 align:middle line:90% with science questions. 00:50:03.900 --> 00:50:06.900 align:middle line:84% And for not skipping a line between his heading 00:50:06.900 --> 00:50:09.330 align:middle line:90% and his answers. 00:50:09.330 --> 00:50:14.010 align:middle line:84% The Xs for wrong things are bigger, much bigger 00:50:14.010 --> 00:50:18.630 align:middle line:84% than David Talamántez's tiny writing. 00:50:18.630 --> 00:50:22.470 align:middle line:84% Write larger, his teacher says in red ink 00:50:22.470 --> 00:50:25.380 align:middle line:90% across the tops of many pages. 00:50:25.380 --> 00:50:29.370 align:middle line:84% Messy, she says on others where he has erased 00:50:29.370 --> 00:50:34.590 align:middle line:84% and started over, erased and started over. 00:50:34.590 --> 00:50:38.640 align:middle line:84% Spelling, language expression, sentences 00:50:38.640 --> 00:50:42.020 align:middle line:90% using the following words-- 00:50:42.020 --> 00:50:53.230 align:middle line:84% neck, I have a neck name, no, 20s, 30s, think again. 00:50:53.230 --> 00:50:57.060 align:middle line:84% He's good in art though, makes 70 00:50:57.060 --> 00:51:00.750 align:middle line:84% on Reading Station Artist's Corner, where 00:51:00.750 --> 00:51:06.630 align:middle line:84% he's traced and colored an illustration from Henny Penny. 00:51:06.630 --> 00:51:10.140 align:middle line:84% A goose with red and white striped shirt, 00:51:10.140 --> 00:51:14.070 align:middle line:90% a hen in a turquoise dress. 00:51:14.070 --> 00:51:17.980 align:middle line:84% Points off for the birds, cloud, and butterfly 00:51:17.980 --> 00:51:21.540 align:middle line:90% he's drawn in freehand. 00:51:21.540 --> 00:51:23.970 align:middle line:90% Not in the original picture. 00:51:23.970 --> 00:51:26.700 align:middle line:90% 00:51:26.700 --> 00:51:32.190 align:middle line:84% 25 points off for writing nothing in the blank after 00:51:32.190 --> 00:51:35.805 align:middle line:84% 'This is my favorite scene in the book because.' 00:51:35.805 --> 00:51:38.620 align:middle line:90% 00:51:38.620 --> 00:51:42.280 align:middle line:90% There's a page called rules. 00:51:42.280 --> 00:51:46.150 align:middle line:84% Listen, always working, stay in your seat, 00:51:46.150 --> 00:51:52.270 align:middle line:84% raise your hand before you speak, no fighting, be quiet. 00:51:52.270 --> 00:51:56.140 align:middle line:84% Rules copied from the board, no grade, 00:51:56.140 --> 00:51:59.980 align:middle line:90% only a huge red checkmark. 00:51:59.980 --> 00:52:04.450 align:middle line:90% Later, there is a test on rules. 00:52:04.450 --> 00:52:12.970 align:middle line:84% 'Listen, alay ercng, sast in ao snet, rars aone bfo your spek, 00:52:12.970 --> 00:52:17.590 align:middle line:90% no finagn, be cayt.' 00:52:17.590 --> 00:52:23.440 align:middle line:84% He gets 70 on rules, 10 on spelling. 00:52:23.440 --> 00:52:27.070 align:middle line:84% An old man stoops to pick up a crumpled drawing 00:52:27.070 --> 00:52:30.970 align:middle line:84% of a large family crowded around a table. 00:52:30.970 --> 00:52:36.160 align:middle line:84% An apartment with bars on the windows in Alazán Courts. 00:52:36.160 --> 00:52:41.905 align:middle line:84% A huge sun in one corner saying 'to mush noys.' 00:52:41.905 --> 00:52:44.650 align:middle line:90% 00:52:44.650 --> 00:52:50.810 align:middle line:84% After correcting the spelling, the grade is 90. 00:52:50.810 --> 00:52:53.980 align:middle line:90% Nice details. 00:52:53.980 --> 00:52:59.320 align:middle line:84% And there's another mark on this paper and all the others. 00:52:59.320 --> 00:53:03.520 align:middle line:84% The one in the doorway of La Rosa beauty shop. 00:53:03.520 --> 00:53:06.190 align:middle line:84% The one that blew under the pool table 00:53:06.190 --> 00:53:09.970 align:middle line:84% at La Tenampa, the ones the older kids 00:53:09.970 --> 00:53:13.180 align:middle line:84% have watered up like big spit balls. 00:53:13.180 --> 00:53:16.600 align:middle line:90% The ones run over by cars. 00:53:16.600 --> 00:53:20.740 align:middle line:84% On every single page, David Talamántez 00:53:20.740 --> 00:53:24.190 align:middle line:84% has crossed out the teacher's red numbers 00:53:24.190 --> 00:53:28.960 align:middle line:84% and written in giant letters blue ink. 00:53:28.960 --> 00:53:33.670 align:middle line:90% Yes, David, yes." 00:53:33.670 --> 00:53:34.390 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:53:34.390 --> 00:53:37.883 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:53:37.883 --> 00:53:44.869 align:middle line:90% 00:53:44.869 --> 00:53:48.362 align:middle line:90% [SIDE CONVERSATION] 00:53:48.362 --> 00:57:21.040 align:middle line:90% 00:57:21.040 --> 00:57:21.700 align:middle line:90% I love it. 00:57:21.700 --> 00:57:22.940 align:middle line:90% I'm going to have some water. 00:57:22.940 --> 00:57:24.940 align:middle line:90% Anybody want any? 00:57:24.940 --> 00:57:25.440 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:57:25.440 --> 00:57:28.849 align:middle line:90% [SIDE CONVERSATION] 00:57:28.849 --> 00:57:38.110 align:middle line:90% 00:57:38.110 --> 00:57:40.840 align:middle line:84% Yeah, it'd be nice to get a tape for the PC library. 00:57:40.840 --> 00:57:41.340 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:57:41.340 --> 00:57:44.604 align:middle line:90% [SIDE CONVERSATION] 00:57:44.604 --> 00:57:58.080 align:middle line:90% 00:57:58.080 --> 00:57:59.400 align:middle line:90% Oh my God. 00:57:59.400 --> 00:58:01.650 align:middle line:90% Really? 00:58:01.650 --> 00:58:03.310 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:58:03.310 --> 00:58:03.810 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:58:03.810 --> 00:58:07.254 align:middle line:90% [SIDE CONVERSATION] 00:58:07.254 --> 00:58:35.865 align:middle line:90% 00:58:35.865 --> 00:58:39.215 align:middle line:90% Lots of fun times. 00:58:39.215 --> 00:58:44.080 align:middle line:84% The pictures we took on one of our afternoons in the city too. 00:58:44.080 --> 00:58:44.720 align:middle line:90% Oh yeah. 00:58:44.720 --> 00:58:47.750 align:middle line:90% [SIDE CONVERSATION] 00:58:47.750 --> 00:59:25.320 align:middle line:90% 00:59:25.320 --> 00:59:27.040 align:middle line:90% Well, you're wonderful. 00:59:27.040 --> 00:59:27.540 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:59:27.540 --> 00:59:30.900 align:middle line:90% [SIDE CONVERSATION] 00:59:30.900 --> 00:59:32.820 align:middle line:90% 00:59:32.820 --> 00:59:36.850 align:middle line:84% Well, I hope Rosemary sends you her [INAUDIBLE]. 00:59:36.850 --> 00:59:40.500 align:middle line:90% [SIDE CONVERSATION] 00:59:40.500 --> 00:59:54.000 align:middle line:90%