WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.570 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.570 --> 00:00:04.710 align:middle line:84% "Two kinds of dying, then one of each is easy, 00:00:04.710 --> 00:00:07.110 align:middle line:90% like the sadness that weds us. 00:00:07.110 --> 00:00:09.090 align:middle line:90% There are two ways to be alone. 00:00:09.090 --> 00:00:12.450 align:middle line:84% One is filled with sunlight, and the yellowing aspen turn it 00:00:12.450 --> 00:00:14.670 align:middle line:90% by alchemy into themselves." 00:00:14.670 --> 00:00:21.045 align:middle line:90% 00:00:21.045 --> 00:00:23.420 align:middle line:84% And then I'll just read a couple of poems from this book. 00:00:23.420 --> 00:00:29.370 align:middle line:90% 00:00:29.370 --> 00:00:34.140 align:middle line:84% Probably by now, everyone knows what the uncertainty principle 00:00:34.140 --> 00:00:35.790 align:middle line:90% is, Heisenberg's principle. 00:00:35.790 --> 00:00:39.150 align:middle line:90% I used to have to explain that. 00:00:39.150 --> 00:00:41.760 align:middle line:84% But by now, history moves so fast. 00:00:41.760 --> 00:00:43.920 align:middle line:84% The best explanation I ever heard of it-- 00:00:43.920 --> 00:00:47.370 align:middle line:84% it's the idea that the presence of an observer 00:00:47.370 --> 00:00:50.280 align:middle line:84% changes what's being observed, whether it's anthropology 00:00:50.280 --> 00:00:53.310 align:middle line:90% or particle physics. 00:00:53.310 --> 00:00:56.340 align:middle line:84% The best illustration I ever heard of it 00:00:56.340 --> 00:00:58.380 align:middle line:84% was Douglas Hofstadter, which he said 00:00:58.380 --> 00:01:00.473 align:middle line:84% it's like dropping a quarter into your couch, 00:01:00.473 --> 00:01:02.890 align:middle line:84% and you reach down in there, and you try to get that back. 00:01:02.890 --> 00:01:05.220 align:middle line:84% But as you push your hand down, spreads 00:01:05.220 --> 00:01:11.310 align:middle line:84% the cushions of the couch, and the quarter just keeps going. 00:01:11.310 --> 00:01:14.100 align:middle line:84% And in this case, the couch is infinite. 00:01:14.100 --> 00:01:17.278 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:17.278 --> 00:01:18.640 align:middle line:90% 00:01:18.640 --> 00:01:20.100 align:middle line:84% So I was thinking about that, and I 00:01:20.100 --> 00:01:22.860 align:middle line:84% was thinking about some things that were going on 00:01:22.860 --> 00:01:24.630 align:middle line:84% and that will become clear in the poem. 00:01:24.630 --> 00:01:28.950 align:middle line:84% And I was also thinking about those guys, the polar explorers, 00:01:28.950 --> 00:01:32.690 align:middle line:84% those guys who went to a lot of effort to reach the North Pole. 00:01:32.690 --> 00:01:37.600 align:middle line:84% And if you get close to the North Pole, at a certain point, 00:01:37.600 --> 00:01:39.090 align:middle line:84% your compass doesn't work anymore. 00:01:39.090 --> 00:01:41.490 align:middle line:90% It just goes around and around. 00:01:41.490 --> 00:01:43.980 align:middle line:84% And so you have to start navigating 00:01:43.980 --> 00:01:47.040 align:middle line:90% with the stars and the sun. 00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:49.440 align:middle line:84% And then I was thinking, after all that effort and months 00:01:49.440 --> 00:01:52.770 align:middle line:84% and eating dogs and stuff, you get to the North Pole. 00:01:52.770 --> 00:01:56.370 align:middle line:90% And then where's north? 00:01:56.370 --> 00:01:58.980 align:middle line:90% You got 360 degrees of south. 00:01:58.980 --> 00:02:02.439 align:middle line:90% Was that-- well, that's true. 00:02:02.439 --> 00:02:05.652 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:02:05.652 --> 00:02:06.570 align:middle line:90% 00:02:06.570 --> 00:02:08.789 align:middle line:90% "The Uncertainty Principle." 00:02:08.789 --> 00:02:13.020 align:middle line:84% "The real is not what happens but what is about to happen, 00:02:13.020 --> 00:02:16.650 align:middle line:84% whatever you were dying for before. 00:02:16.650 --> 00:02:20.490 align:middle line:84% Knowing is just feeling with a sense of direction, 00:02:20.490 --> 00:02:22.770 align:middle line:84% and thinking tags after like a string 00:02:22.770 --> 00:02:26.670 align:middle line:90% of tin cans, annoying everyone. 00:02:26.670 --> 00:02:30.040 align:middle line:90% Something was about to happen. 00:02:30.040 --> 00:02:32.340 align:middle line:84% My mother said I'd never make it back in time 00:02:32.340 --> 00:02:35.070 align:middle line:84% by the way she looked at me forever. 00:02:35.070 --> 00:02:37.440 align:middle line:90% She wasn't thinking. 00:02:37.440 --> 00:02:41.310 align:middle line:84% I pledge allegiance to her eyes, don't envy me. 00:02:41.310 --> 00:02:44.460 align:middle line:84% When you reach the North Pole, the idea of North 00:02:44.460 --> 00:02:47.910 align:middle line:90% becomes unrealized, free. 00:02:47.910 --> 00:02:49.980 align:middle line:90% Which north was true? 00:02:49.980 --> 00:02:52.260 align:middle line:90% Which south was home? 00:02:52.260 --> 00:02:55.920 align:middle line:90% What is it you are dying for? 00:02:55.920 --> 00:02:59.100 align:middle line:84% Only the stars, which do not know, can tell. 00:02:59.100 --> 00:03:01.620 align:middle line:84% Only the stars, which do not know, can tell." 00:03:01.620 --> 00:03:07.710 align:middle line:90% 00:03:07.710 --> 00:03:08.210 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:03:08.210 --> 00:03:27.315 align:middle line:90% 00:03:27.315 --> 00:03:29.440 align:middle line:84% For a couple of these poems that I'm going to read, 00:03:29.440 --> 00:03:33.430 align:middle line:84% it will be helpful to know that I was born in 1950. 00:03:33.430 --> 00:03:36.610 align:middle line:84% This poem is called "Independence Day, 1956-- 00:03:36.610 --> 00:03:39.670 align:middle line:90% A Fairy Tale." 00:03:39.670 --> 00:03:43.660 align:middle line:84% "I think this house's mouth is full of dirt. 00:03:43.660 --> 00:03:46.030 align:middle line:90% Smoke is nothing up its sleeve. 00:03:46.030 --> 00:03:48.370 align:middle line:90% I think it could explode. 00:03:48.370 --> 00:03:52.240 align:middle line:84% Where I am, in the dirt under the floor, I hear them. 00:03:52.240 --> 00:03:53.770 align:middle line:90% They don't know. 00:03:53.770 --> 00:03:55.150 align:middle line:90% My mother leaves each room. 00:03:55.150 --> 00:03:56.470 align:middle line:90% My father enters. 00:03:56.470 --> 00:03:59.980 align:middle line:84% Now she is cleaning things that are already cleaned. 00:03:59.980 --> 00:04:01.900 align:middle line:90% My father is in the living room. 00:04:01.900 --> 00:04:03.310 align:middle line:90% He's pouring. 00:04:03.310 --> 00:04:07.390 align:middle line:84% Rum into a glass, gas into a lamp, kerosene into a can. 00:04:07.390 --> 00:04:10.150 align:middle line:84% He pours capped fuses, matches, dynamite 00:04:10.150 --> 00:04:11.710 align:middle line:90% sticks into his pockets. 00:04:11.710 --> 00:04:14.290 align:middle line:84% He pours rounds into the .45 which 00:04:14.290 --> 00:04:16.870 align:middle line:84% he will point skyward and hold next to his ear 00:04:16.870 --> 00:04:19.540 align:middle line:84% as if it were telling him things. 00:04:19.540 --> 00:04:22.089 align:middle line:90% Where I am, the spider spins. 00:04:22.089 --> 00:04:26.380 align:middle line:84% The broken mouse drags a trap through lunar talc of dust. 00:04:26.380 --> 00:04:31.030 align:middle line:84% Where the bitch whelps is where I wriggle on my belly, cowardly, 00:04:31.030 --> 00:04:34.660 align:middle line:84% ashamed, to escape the 4th of July. 00:04:34.660 --> 00:04:36.550 align:middle line:90% I think the house is very ready. 00:04:36.550 --> 00:04:40.240 align:middle line:84% It seems to hover like an 'exploded view' in a repair 00:04:40.240 --> 00:04:45.070 align:middle line:84% manual, parts suspended in disbelief, nails pulled back, 00:04:45.070 --> 00:04:46.210 align:middle line:90% aimed. 00:04:46.210 --> 00:04:47.890 align:middle line:90% My father goes out. 00:04:47.890 --> 00:04:49.300 align:middle line:90% My mother whimpers. 00:04:49.300 --> 00:04:50.650 align:middle line:90% There will be no supper. 00:04:50.650 --> 00:04:53.380 align:middle line:84% She opens the firebox and stuffs it full of forks. 00:04:53.380 --> 00:04:57.530 align:middle line:90% 00:04:57.530 --> 00:05:00.680 align:middle line:90% "The Weather Spider." 00:05:00.680 --> 00:05:03.920 align:middle line:90% A spider lives in the barometer. 00:05:03.920 --> 00:05:07.190 align:middle line:84% It's a white spider, and it was born there. 00:05:07.190 --> 00:05:10.400 align:middle line:84% Sometimes, it rains from a clear blue sky, 00:05:10.400 --> 00:05:15.500 align:middle line:84% or rain falls without touching the ground, or it doesn't rain. 00:05:15.500 --> 00:05:18.290 align:middle line:84% Of course, we had weather before the spider, 00:05:18.290 --> 00:05:21.140 align:middle line:84% before the barometer, so it isn't that. 00:05:21.140 --> 00:05:23.600 align:middle line:84% We have thunder and winter, dry lightning 00:05:23.600 --> 00:05:26.660 align:middle line:84% unraveling the tree and the three good horses under it, 00:05:26.660 --> 00:05:29.090 align:middle line:84% snow leaving the Earth and falling straight 00:05:29.090 --> 00:05:32.090 align:middle line:90% up back into the cloud. 00:05:32.090 --> 00:05:34.550 align:middle line:90% Anybody got a match? 00:05:34.550 --> 00:05:38.270 align:middle line:84% Anybody got a thimble full of blood? 00:05:38.270 --> 00:05:42.230 align:middle line:84% After a slim night storm, the spidery likenesses of aspens 00:05:42.230 --> 00:05:46.250 align:middle line:84% memorized the north sides of the trees themselves. 00:05:46.250 --> 00:05:49.070 align:middle line:84% Wouldn't it be wrong to say the new buds wait? 00:05:49.070 --> 00:05:50.990 align:middle line:90% She denies. 00:05:50.990 --> 00:05:53.390 align:middle line:84% Do you think the spider doesn't matter 00:05:53.390 --> 00:05:56.570 align:middle line:84% to weather just because it lives in the barometer? 00:05:56.570 --> 00:06:00.170 align:middle line:84% The first light seems to like it in these glass branches. 00:06:00.170 --> 00:06:03.590 align:middle line:84% The whole morning is given to unilateral disarmament 00:06:03.590 --> 00:06:06.170 align:middle line:90% of all the sides. 00:06:06.170 --> 00:06:08.990 align:middle line:84% Beneath the glass, the spider's indifference towards us 00:06:08.990 --> 00:06:11.840 align:middle line:90% grows immense, indomitable. 00:06:11.840 --> 00:06:13.760 align:middle line:84% Anybody got a thimble full of blood?" 00:06:13.760 --> 00:06:17.930 align:middle line:90% 00:06:17.930 --> 00:06:20.770 align:middle line:90% "Art Class." 00:06:20.770 --> 00:06:23.860 align:middle line:84% "Let us begin with a simple line, drawn 00:06:23.860 --> 00:06:28.150 align:middle line:84% as a child would draw it, to indicate the horizon. 00:06:28.150 --> 00:06:32.230 align:middle line:84% More real than the real horizon, which is less than line, 00:06:32.230 --> 00:06:36.220 align:middle line:84% which is visible abstraction, a ratio. 00:06:36.220 --> 00:06:39.010 align:middle line:84% The line ravages the page with implications 00:06:39.010 --> 00:06:41.560 align:middle line:90% of white earth, white sky. 00:06:41.560 --> 00:06:46.480 align:middle line:84% The horizon moves as we move, making us feel central. 00:06:46.480 --> 00:06:50.200 align:middle line:84% But the horizon is an empty shell, strange radius 00:06:50.200 --> 00:06:52.420 align:middle line:90% whose center is peripheral. 00:06:52.420 --> 00:06:55.510 align:middle line:84% As the horizon draws us on, withdrawing, 00:06:55.510 --> 00:06:59.500 align:middle line:84% the line draws us in and requiring further lines, 00:06:59.500 --> 00:07:03.640 align:middle line:84% engendering curves, verticals, diagonals, urging shades, 00:07:03.640 --> 00:07:05.350 align:middle line:90% shapes, figures. 00:07:05.350 --> 00:07:10.510 align:middle line:84% What should we place, in all good faith, on the horizon? 00:07:10.510 --> 00:07:12.010 align:middle line:90% A stone? 00:07:12.010 --> 00:07:13.960 align:middle line:90% An empty chair? 00:07:13.960 --> 00:07:15.790 align:middle line:90% A submarine? 00:07:15.790 --> 00:07:17.320 align:middle line:90% Take your time. 00:07:17.320 --> 00:07:18.700 align:middle line:90% Take it easy. 00:07:18.700 --> 00:07:21.280 align:middle line:84% The horizon will not stop abstracting us." 00:07:21.280 --> 00:07:24.800 align:middle line:90% 00:07:24.800 --> 00:07:26.300 align:middle line:84% Well, you remember a couple of years 00:07:26.300 --> 00:07:30.075 align:middle line:84% ago when everybody was talking about Christopher Columbus. 00:07:30.075 --> 00:07:32.840 align:middle line:90% His day was yesterday, I think. 00:07:32.840 --> 00:07:36.770 align:middle line:84% And a couple of years ago, there were people saying, 00:07:36.770 --> 00:07:41.302 align:middle line:84% you can't celebrate Columbus, because he was bad. 00:07:41.302 --> 00:07:43.010 align:middle line:84% And there were other people saying, sure, 00:07:43.010 --> 00:07:44.135 align:middle line:90% you can celebrate Columbus. 00:07:44.135 --> 00:07:47.385 align:middle line:84% He was good, and it went on like that. 00:07:47.385 --> 00:07:49.610 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:07:49.610 --> 00:07:50.950 align:middle line:90% 00:07:50.950 --> 00:07:54.970 align:middle line:84% This poem is called "On Exploration." 00:07:54.970 --> 00:07:59.980 align:middle line:84% "A hawk drops to the treetop like a falling cross. 00:07:59.980 --> 00:08:02.750 align:middle line:90% The haybarn is ticking. 00:08:02.750 --> 00:08:05.650 align:middle line:90% The Universe has everything. 00:08:05.650 --> 00:08:08.380 align:middle line:90% That's what I like about it. 00:08:08.380 --> 00:08:11.800 align:middle line:84% A single chubby cloud beelines downwind, trying 00:08:11.800 --> 00:08:13.900 align:middle line:90% to catch up with the others. 00:08:13.900 --> 00:08:17.140 align:middle line:84% Yellow leaves plane across the water, drifting the inlet. 00:08:17.140 --> 00:08:19.960 align:middle line:90% The pond is a droozy eye. 00:08:19.960 --> 00:08:25.180 align:middle line:84% Details tend to equal each other, making decisions harder. 00:08:25.180 --> 00:08:28.600 align:middle line:90% Is polio an endangered species? 00:08:28.600 --> 00:08:30.320 align:middle line:90% The Universe is mostly empty-- 00:08:30.320 --> 00:08:33.520 align:middle line:84% that's important-- a fractal palindrome 00:08:33.520 --> 00:08:36.520 align:middle line:90% of concentric emptinesses. 00:08:36.520 --> 00:08:38.440 align:middle line:90% Is there life out there? 00:08:38.440 --> 00:08:40.750 align:middle line:90% Are there lawns? 00:08:40.750 --> 00:08:42.909 align:middle line:84% Columbus is famous for discovering 00:08:42.909 --> 00:08:47.290 align:middle line:84% a place where there were already people killing each other. 00:08:47.290 --> 00:08:48.880 align:middle line:90% Nothing missing. 00:08:48.880 --> 00:08:50.500 align:middle line:90% Nothing new. 00:08:50.500 --> 00:08:52.690 align:middle line:90% Let's pick wildflowers. 00:08:52.690 --> 00:08:55.180 align:middle line:90% Let's take a meteor shower. 00:08:55.180 --> 00:08:57.850 align:middle line:84% Let's live forever, and let's die, too." 00:08:57.850 --> 00:09:15.715 align:middle line:90% 00:09:15.715 --> 00:09:17.215 align:middle line:84% "The War That Isn't What You Think." 00:09:17.215 --> 00:09:19.720 align:middle line:90% 00:09:19.720 --> 00:09:21.910 align:middle line:84% "The little wind I saw curving and lifting 00:09:21.910 --> 00:09:26.350 align:middle line:84% the black mare's mane never came this way, though I waited, 00:09:26.350 --> 00:09:27.760 align:middle line:90% face tilted-- 00:09:27.760 --> 00:09:31.660 align:middle line:84% to wind as heliotropic is to sun. 00:09:31.660 --> 00:09:34.180 align:middle line:84% We have to keep our disappointment alive. 00:09:34.180 --> 00:09:36.790 align:middle line:84% We have to sustain our appall, act 00:09:36.790 --> 00:09:40.660 align:middle line:84% surprised that humanity has, again today, failed 00:09:40.660 --> 00:09:43.900 align:middle line:84% to evolve away from meanness, that we ourselves 00:09:43.900 --> 00:09:45.910 align:middle line:90% have failed in this. 00:09:45.910 --> 00:09:49.090 align:middle line:84% Invisible earth, I still can't feel any wind, 00:09:49.090 --> 00:09:51.460 align:middle line:84% can't feel, though I hear cottonwood leaves that 00:09:51.460 --> 00:09:56.050 align:middle line:84% hung still turn sudden, turn all-at-once, like 00:09:56.050 --> 00:09:58.960 align:middle line:84% small birds in a flight of small birds, turning, 00:09:58.960 --> 00:10:01.510 align:middle line:90% like one thing instead of many. 00:10:01.510 --> 00:10:04.210 align:middle line:84% Turn silver side to the wind when it comes, 00:10:04.210 --> 00:10:07.060 align:middle line:90% shiver and moan when it comes. 00:10:07.060 --> 00:10:10.900 align:middle line:84% O wind, immaculate, that lifts the mane, immaculate, 00:10:10.900 --> 00:10:13.720 align:middle line:84% that turns the silver leaves, that bears away 00:10:13.720 --> 00:10:15.670 align:middle line:90% the smoke of sacrifice. 00:10:15.670 --> 00:10:19.000 align:middle line:84% The wind, when it finds me, bears no trace of sage-sweet 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:23.830 align:middle line:84% horse smell, no color black, no softness of muzzle of the mare, 00:10:23.830 --> 00:10:27.607 align:middle line:84% her mane curving and lifting where she grazes the horizon 00:10:27.607 --> 00:10:28.315 align:middle line:90% down to nothing." 00:10:28.315 --> 00:10:40.700 align:middle line:90% 00:10:40.700 --> 00:10:44.510 align:middle line:84% Jane made an allusion to Greek fragments, 00:10:44.510 --> 00:10:45.650 align:middle line:90% so I should read this. 00:10:45.650 --> 00:10:49.940 align:middle line:84% It's called "Sapphic Suicide Note." 00:10:49.940 --> 00:10:54.020 align:middle line:84% "Day out, no worldly joy, italics mine." 00:10:54.020 --> 00:10:56.624 align:middle line:90% 00:10:56.624 --> 00:10:58.547 align:middle line:90% There aren't any italics in it. 00:10:58.547 --> 00:11:08.490 align:middle line:90% 00:11:08.490 --> 00:11:12.660 align:middle line:84% This poem came out of a-- well, I've 00:11:12.660 --> 00:11:15.900 align:middle line:84% never really written poems on request. 00:11:15.900 --> 00:11:18.280 align:middle line:84% I don't intend to really do that. 00:11:18.280 --> 00:11:26.552 align:middle line:84% But I got asked to write a poem about a painting, 00:11:26.552 --> 00:11:28.010 align:middle line:84% along with a number of other poets. 00:11:28.010 --> 00:11:31.100 align:middle line:84% And all the other poets went through this catalog. 00:11:31.100 --> 00:11:33.920 align:middle line:84% We were supposed to write a poem about a painting 00:11:33.920 --> 00:11:36.140 align:middle line:90% in a certain art collection. 00:11:36.140 --> 00:11:38.570 align:middle line:84% And all the smart guys went through, 00:11:38.570 --> 00:11:42.012 align:middle line:84% and they chose paintings that had stuff in them, you know? 00:11:42.012 --> 00:11:45.316 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:11:45.316 --> 00:11:47.210 align:middle line:90% 00:11:47.210 --> 00:11:52.700 align:middle line:84% I chose Mark Rothko because I like Rothko, you know? 00:11:52.700 --> 00:11:58.910 align:middle line:84% And I this is really just a poem about the stuff in a painting. 00:11:58.910 --> 00:12:03.120 align:middle line:84% So this painting-- it's called Untitled, 1968, 00:12:03.120 --> 00:12:06.140 align:middle line:84% and it's a fairly typical Rothko painting, if you know his work. 00:12:06.140 --> 00:12:08.690 align:middle line:84% It's a red-- well, it's many reds, 00:12:08.690 --> 00:12:13.100 align:middle line:84% but it is red in color field, and it 00:12:13.100 --> 00:12:17.420 align:middle line:84% has just a slightly less red band across the middle of it. 00:12:17.420 --> 00:12:19.970 align:middle line:90% 00:12:19.970 --> 00:12:24.190 align:middle line:84% "Untitled, 1968, for Mark Rothko." 00:12:24.190 --> 00:12:27.730 align:middle line:84% "There's no such thing as an emergency. 00:12:27.730 --> 00:12:30.970 align:middle line:90% Betrayal is eventual. 00:12:30.970 --> 00:12:36.640 align:middle line:84% The bridge is a river, when you think about it, river of blood, 00:12:36.640 --> 00:12:39.170 align:middle line:90% when you think about it. 00:12:39.170 --> 00:12:41.410 align:middle line:90% The Lord giveth. 00:12:41.410 --> 00:12:44.980 align:middle line:90% Highest echelons of quietude. 00:12:44.980 --> 00:12:48.100 align:middle line:90% A veronica in each sunset. 00:12:48.100 --> 00:12:52.540 align:middle line:84% In every blackening bandage in the hospital's unspeakable bins, 00:12:52.540 --> 00:12:54.490 align:middle line:90% a veronica. 00:12:54.490 --> 00:12:56.980 align:middle line:90% Someone suffered here. 00:12:56.980 --> 00:13:00.130 align:middle line:84% The elevator of blood rose like any other. 00:13:00.130 --> 00:13:01.690 align:middle line:90% Why not. 00:13:01.690 --> 00:13:05.230 align:middle line:84% Our nets were full of sunset when we hauled them in. 00:13:05.230 --> 00:13:08.620 align:middle line:84% The red sail filled and pulled us darkward. 00:13:08.620 --> 00:13:11.680 align:middle line:90% Blood in the drumroll blossomed. 00:13:11.680 --> 00:13:13.810 align:middle line:90% The Lord giveth. 00:13:13.810 --> 00:13:18.280 align:middle line:84% Thou shalt. Change the bandages when they blacken. 00:13:18.280 --> 00:13:19.870 align:middle line:90% Don't think about it. 00:13:19.870 --> 00:13:22.780 align:middle line:90% Set the red sail and disappear. 00:13:22.780 --> 00:13:24.890 align:middle line:90% Slow drip in silence. 00:13:24.890 --> 00:13:26.300 align:middle line:90% Don't say a word. 00:13:26.300 --> 00:13:31.090 align:middle line:84% Don't say the wineglass on the sill is a sun-dried Sangreal. 00:13:31.090 --> 00:13:32.620 align:middle line:90% It's a landscape. 00:13:32.620 --> 00:13:35.260 align:middle line:90% You just can't bring your body. 00:13:35.260 --> 00:13:37.630 align:middle line:90% The bridge is an inward horizon. 00:13:37.630 --> 00:13:40.540 align:middle line:84% The bridge has arrived in time for us to cross. 00:13:40.540 --> 00:13:44.770 align:middle line:84% I know because someone, or his assistant, suffered here." 00:13:44.770 --> 00:13:50.640 align:middle line:90% 00:13:50.640 --> 00:13:51.645 align:middle line:90% "Resurrection Update." 00:13:51.645 --> 00:13:54.330 align:middle line:90% 00:13:54.330 --> 00:13:56.070 align:middle line:90% "And then it happened. 00:13:56.070 --> 00:13:58.470 align:middle line:84% Amidst cosmic busting and booming, 00:13:58.470 --> 00:14:02.430 align:middle line:84% gravity snapped, that galactic rack and pinion. 00:14:02.430 --> 00:14:04.320 align:middle line:90% Trees took off like rockets. 00:14:04.320 --> 00:14:06.180 align:middle line:90% Cemeteries exploded. 00:14:06.180 --> 00:14:09.570 align:middle line:84% The living and the dead flew straight up together. 00:14:09.570 --> 00:14:11.250 align:middle line:90% Only up was gone. 00:14:11.250 --> 00:14:12.600 align:middle line:90% Up was away. 00:14:12.600 --> 00:14:17.070 align:middle line:84% Earth still spun as it stalled and drifted darkward, sublime, 00:14:17.070 --> 00:14:18.825 align:middle line:90% an aspirin in a glass of water." 00:14:18.825 --> 00:14:23.970 align:middle line:90% 00:14:23.970 --> 00:14:26.450 align:middle line:84% I'll try to read a poem that I've never read before. 00:14:26.450 --> 00:14:31.180 align:middle line:84% I'm not even sure I like it, but we'll find out. 00:14:31.180 --> 00:14:32.805 align:middle line:84% It's called "You Know What People Say." 00:14:32.805 --> 00:14:35.820 align:middle line:90% 00:14:35.820 --> 00:14:38.280 align:middle line:90% Sulky what-ifs. 00:14:38.280 --> 00:14:41.040 align:middle line:90% Sulky what-ifs. 00:14:41.040 --> 00:14:44.370 align:middle line:90% They bumblefuck the metastuff. 00:14:44.370 --> 00:14:46.890 align:middle line:90% Diffidence their stock in trade. 00:14:46.890 --> 00:14:51.000 align:middle line:90% Cozy hell-- cozy, hell. 00:14:51.000 --> 00:14:53.520 align:middle line:90% They make a mockery of irony. 00:14:53.520 --> 00:14:56.700 align:middle line:84% They hold Special Olympics in wit. 00:14:56.700 --> 00:14:59.590 align:middle line:84% What was Shakespeare's blood pressure? 00:14:59.590 --> 00:15:01.320 align:middle line:90% Lots of luck. 00:15:01.320 --> 00:15:03.720 align:middle line:84% Vertical river, cloister of thunder, 00:15:03.720 --> 00:15:06.180 align:middle line:90% bleeds the ship's fell sail. 00:15:06.180 --> 00:15:08.550 align:middle line:90% God comes in for a landing. 00:15:08.550 --> 00:15:10.800 align:middle line:90% He lowers God's landing gear. 00:15:10.800 --> 00:15:15.210 align:middle line:84% He raises the holy spoilers, lowers the sacred ailerons. 00:15:15.210 --> 00:15:18.570 align:middle line:90% He imagines reality. 00:15:18.570 --> 00:15:20.460 align:middle line:90% Tried everything in life? 00:15:20.460 --> 00:15:21.780 align:middle line:90% Try living. 00:15:21.780 --> 00:15:24.300 align:middle line:90% Sulky what-ifs are dumbstruck. 00:15:24.300 --> 00:15:25.500 align:middle line:90% Drumsticks. 00:15:25.500 --> 00:15:28.800 align:middle line:84% Their spiritual actuality is empirical. 00:15:28.800 --> 00:15:32.130 align:middle line:90% What if uppity angels? 00:15:32.130 --> 00:15:34.380 align:middle line:90% What if there really were rules? 00:15:34.380 --> 00:15:37.560 align:middle line:84% What if those angels melted in the rain? 00:15:37.560 --> 00:15:39.960 align:middle line:84% If reality is illusion, wouldn't it 00:15:39.960 --> 00:15:43.200 align:middle line:84% stand to reason that illusions are real? 00:15:43.200 --> 00:15:45.240 align:middle line:90% A lot of dumb questions. 00:15:45.240 --> 00:15:49.140 align:middle line:84% Impingement of external objects or conditions upon the body 00:15:49.140 --> 00:15:51.540 align:middle line:90% palpitate apostasy. 00:15:51.540 --> 00:15:54.750 align:middle line:84% The oppressed must free the oppressors to free themselves, 00:15:54.750 --> 00:15:56.490 align:middle line:90% see? 00:15:56.490 --> 00:15:58.710 align:middle line:84% The soul is euphemism for the body. 00:15:58.710 --> 00:16:01.020 align:middle line:90% What does willing mean? 00:16:01.020 --> 00:16:02.820 align:middle line:90% Do you sense my sense? 00:16:02.820 --> 00:16:04.770 align:middle line:90% Am I fashionable? 00:16:04.770 --> 00:16:07.470 align:middle line:90% Objective as an angel in-- 00:16:07.470 --> 00:16:10.110 align:middle line:84% where'd you get your soul, Kmart? 00:16:10.110 --> 00:16:13.380 align:middle line:90% Screaming from a safe place? 00:16:13.380 --> 00:16:16.350 align:middle line:84% Nine smocked doctors, three unmasked. 00:16:16.350 --> 00:16:19.740 align:middle line:84% One has left his face sewn to the pillow. 00:16:19.740 --> 00:16:22.860 align:middle line:84% One holds a lace fan like a hand of cards she 00:16:22.860 --> 00:16:25.170 align:middle line:90% studies, considering the risks. 00:16:25.170 --> 00:16:28.170 align:middle line:90% She is the loveliest doctor. 00:16:28.170 --> 00:16:30.150 align:middle line:84% Her doctor-father scolds her right 00:16:30.150 --> 00:16:32.430 align:middle line:84% there in front of all the other doctors. 00:16:32.430 --> 00:16:33.960 align:middle line:90% They are aghast. 00:16:33.960 --> 00:16:37.110 align:middle line:84% They kneel and don carnival hats with feathers. 00:16:37.110 --> 00:16:40.530 align:middle line:84% I don't think they are really doctors. 00:16:40.530 --> 00:16:42.360 align:middle line:90% The trees are real. 00:16:42.360 --> 00:16:44.220 align:middle line:90% They are green kachinas. 00:16:44.220 --> 00:16:48.360 align:middle line:84% Dark rooms of wind are installed in the house of barbarism. 00:16:48.360 --> 00:16:50.760 align:middle line:90% The norm is always incorrect. 00:16:50.760 --> 00:16:51.570 align:middle line:90% If what?" 00:16:51.570 --> 00:17:06.190 align:middle line:90% 00:17:06.190 --> 00:17:07.599 align:middle line:90% I'm going to put-- 00:17:07.599 --> 00:17:10.390 align:middle line:84% in this next book, there's going to be page-- 00:17:10.390 --> 00:17:14.170 align:middle line:84% I wrote this poem before I wrote The Meadow. 00:17:14.170 --> 00:17:16.270 align:middle line:84% It's a little prose poem, and it ended up 00:17:16.270 --> 00:17:21.130 align:middle line:84% being page 131 of The Meadow, but I never 00:17:21.130 --> 00:17:22.180 align:middle line:90% published it as a poem. 00:17:22.180 --> 00:17:23.597 align:middle line:84% And since it was written as one, I 00:17:23.597 --> 00:17:26.829 align:middle line:84% thought I'd just go ahead and publish it again. 00:17:26.829 --> 00:17:28.329 align:middle line:90% It's called "Small Countries." 00:17:28.329 --> 00:17:31.450 align:middle line:90% 00:17:31.450 --> 00:17:34.460 align:middle line:84% "In defense of whatever happens next, 00:17:34.460 --> 00:17:36.880 align:middle line:84% the navy of flat-bottomed popcorn cloud 00:17:36.880 --> 00:17:38.890 align:middle line:84% steams over like they are floating down 00:17:38.890 --> 00:17:40.660 align:middle line:90% a river we're under. 00:17:40.660 --> 00:17:43.810 align:middle line:84% To the west, red cliffs, more pasture, 00:17:43.810 --> 00:17:47.080 align:middle line:84% the blue Medicine Bow with stretchmarked snowfields, 00:17:47.080 --> 00:17:50.350 align:middle line:90% quartzite faces like sunny bone. 00:17:50.350 --> 00:17:53.650 align:middle line:84% I'm worried about Lyle getting back from town with his oxygen, 00:17:53.650 --> 00:17:55.480 align:middle line:84% but then I see him through binoculars 00:17:55.480 --> 00:17:58.570 align:middle line:84% turn the Studebaker, antlike, off the county road 00:17:58.570 --> 00:18:00.040 align:middle line:90% and up the four-mile grade. 00:18:00.040 --> 00:18:02.440 align:middle line:84% So small down there that I want to imagine 00:18:02.440 --> 00:18:06.220 align:middle line:84% his hands on the wheel, still strong, his creased blue jeans 00:18:06.220 --> 00:18:09.400 align:middle line:84% and high-top shoes I know he wears to town. 00:18:09.400 --> 00:18:11.410 align:middle line:84% He turns off the road on a small knoll 00:18:11.410 --> 00:18:14.980 align:middle line:84% about halfway up and stops the truck, facing the mountains. 00:18:14.980 --> 00:18:17.720 align:middle line:84% He still looks small against so much space, 00:18:17.720 --> 00:18:20.110 align:middle line:84% but I can see his left arm and shoulder, 00:18:20.110 --> 00:18:25.330 align:middle line:84% and the brim of his hat lowered as he lights a smoke 00:18:25.330 --> 00:18:27.130 align:middle line:84% and looks off toward the mountains. 00:18:27.130 --> 00:18:30.880 align:middle line:84% And small countries of light and dark rush across the prairie 00:18:30.880 --> 00:18:32.470 align:middle line:90% towards him and over him." 00:18:32.470 --> 00:18:38.300 align:middle line:90% 00:18:38.300 --> 00:18:41.480 align:middle line:84% This is a kind of a weird poem, and it's also an older poem 00:18:41.480 --> 00:18:45.110 align:middle line:84% that I didn't put in the last book of poems that I published, 00:18:45.110 --> 00:18:49.340 align:middle line:84% and it's kind of stayed around and somehow survived. 00:18:49.340 --> 00:18:52.280 align:middle line:84% But I had a problem with it because somewhere years ago, 00:18:52.280 --> 00:18:55.400 align:middle line:84% someone told me this wonderful word, 00:18:55.400 --> 00:18:57.980 align:middle line:84% and I remembered being told, I think, 00:18:57.980 --> 00:19:00.068 align:middle line:84% that it was Swedish or something, I think, 00:19:00.068 --> 00:19:01.610 align:middle line:84% because that's what I assumed it was. 00:19:01.610 --> 00:19:04.040 align:middle line:84% And the word is "svaha," and I was told that it means 00:19:04.040 --> 00:19:08.318 align:middle line:84% "the space between the lightning and the thunder," 00:19:08.318 --> 00:19:10.610 align:middle line:84% which I thought was great, because we don't have a word 00:19:10.610 --> 00:19:12.060 align:middle line:90% for that. 00:19:12.060 --> 00:19:15.095 align:middle line:84% And so years and years later, I'm putting this manuscript, 00:19:15.095 --> 00:19:17.090 align:middle line:84% and I start to get nervous about this word 00:19:17.090 --> 00:19:20.420 align:middle line:84% because maybe you should double-check it. 00:19:20.420 --> 00:19:27.590 align:middle line:84% And so I asked a Swedish person that I know. 00:19:27.590 --> 00:19:31.430 align:middle line:84% She recognized this word, and she said, no. 00:19:31.430 --> 00:19:33.890 align:middle line:84% So that left me knowing what the word meant, 00:19:33.890 --> 00:19:36.202 align:middle line:84% just not knowing what language it was in, 00:19:36.202 --> 00:19:37.910 align:middle line:84% which is just playing hell with the note, 00:19:37.910 --> 00:19:39.077 align:middle line:90% see, at the end of the book. 00:19:39.077 --> 00:19:42.290 align:middle line:90% 00:19:42.290 --> 00:19:47.000 align:middle line:84% I'd seen the word used by Gary Snyder in a completely different 00:19:47.000 --> 00:19:51.230 align:middle line:84% context, and I suspected since he used it, it must be Sanskrit. 00:19:51.230 --> 00:19:52.970 align:middle line:84% So I went to the Sanskrit dictionary. 00:19:52.970 --> 00:19:55.490 align:middle line:84% And indeed, I found the word, but it doesn't mean "the space 00:19:55.490 --> 00:19:56.948 align:middle line:84% between the lightning the thunder." 00:19:56.948 --> 00:19:58.760 align:middle line:84% It means "to squander one's inheritance." 00:19:58.760 --> 00:20:02.071 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:20:02.071 --> 00:20:05.390 align:middle line:90% 00:20:05.390 --> 00:20:08.210 align:middle line:84% And there's also a similar word very close to that, [SANSKRIT], 00:20:08.210 --> 00:20:09.950 align:middle line:90% which means "excrement of dog." 00:20:09.950 --> 00:20:12.578 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:20:12.578 --> 00:20:13.460 align:middle line:90% 00:20:13.460 --> 00:20:18.500 align:middle line:84% So I just deleted the note, and I don't know what to do now. 00:20:18.500 --> 00:20:20.000 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:23.000 align:middle line:84% But every time I give a reading, I can explain this, 00:20:23.000 --> 00:20:27.280 align:middle line:84% and you know that I meant the space between the-- 00:20:27.280 --> 00:20:30.411 align:middle line:84% I meant that I thought that there was this word, see? 00:20:30.411 --> 00:20:32.570 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:20:32.570 --> 00:20:34.100 align:middle line:90% So this is "Big Thompson Svaha." 00:20:34.100 --> 00:20:36.170 align:middle line:84% Big Thompson Canyon in Colorado is where-- 00:20:36.170 --> 00:20:39.080 align:middle line:84% I think it was in 1972 or '74 or something like that-- 00:20:39.080 --> 00:20:42.080 align:middle line:84% they had a flash flood, and 220 people were killed. 00:20:42.080 --> 00:20:44.760 align:middle line:90% 00:20:44.760 --> 00:20:47.970 align:middle line:84% "Down from the weary steeply buttressed cirques 00:20:47.970 --> 00:20:50.760 align:middle line:84% over snow-fat stands of evergreens, 00:20:50.760 --> 00:20:54.450 align:middle line:84% the river gathers rain into her skirts and hurries it away. 00:20:54.450 --> 00:20:58.830 align:middle line:84% Smithereens of broken mountains blush and steam and yawn. 00:20:58.830 --> 00:21:02.730 align:middle line:84% There is no word in English for the gap between the look 00:21:02.730 --> 00:21:05.040 align:middle line:90% of lightning and its clap. 00:21:05.040 --> 00:21:07.680 align:middle line:84% After a moment of deep consideration, 00:21:07.680 --> 00:21:10.680 align:middle line:84% permission to resume our lives again. 00:21:10.680 --> 00:21:13.980 align:middle line:84% Tomorrow, they will pick limp fishermen from limbs of trees 00:21:13.980 --> 00:21:17.610 align:middle line:84% that never meant to bear, and oldsters from Dubuque will point 00:21:17.610 --> 00:21:21.840 align:middle line:84% to where their cottage went, while unexploded propaned bob, 00:21:21.840 --> 00:21:26.700 align:middle line:84% nudge, and spin, so unashamed in the deep permissionless 00:21:26.700 --> 00:21:31.545 align:middle line:84% consideration that waits for us birth light, death row, taken." 00:21:31.545 --> 00:21:37.160 align:middle line:90% 00:21:37.160 --> 00:21:41.810 align:middle line:84% "In the stunned little interval between winter and spring, 00:21:41.810 --> 00:21:46.640 align:middle line:84% like the held gasp of surprise preceding real wonder, 00:21:46.640 --> 00:21:49.430 align:middle line:90% I'm a flashlight in daylight. 00:21:49.430 --> 00:21:52.940 align:middle line:84% Green stirs low down and shows through dead blond shocks 00:21:52.940 --> 00:21:58.160 align:middle line:84% of grass, and gray aspen flowers dangle above old snowbanks-- 00:21:58.160 --> 00:22:01.250 align:middle line:90% I go around like a feral saint. 00:22:01.250 --> 00:22:05.630 align:middle line:84% The timber hoards its meager crust of snow. 00:22:05.630 --> 00:22:09.170 align:middle line:84% I used to walk over the hill to visit my neighbor about now, 00:22:09.170 --> 00:22:12.680 align:middle line:84% just because he was still alive after another winter. 00:22:12.680 --> 00:22:15.590 align:middle line:84% We'd look out the window at the groggy meadow, 00:22:15.590 --> 00:22:18.380 align:middle line:90% not much to say by the end. 00:22:18.380 --> 00:22:22.730 align:middle line:84% This year, my neighbor is dead, so I walked the hill anyway. 00:22:22.730 --> 00:22:24.320 align:middle line:90% There's his dead house. 00:22:24.320 --> 00:22:26.810 align:middle line:90% There's his dead fence. 00:22:26.810 --> 00:22:30.050 align:middle line:84% The timber hoards its meager crust of snow. 00:22:30.050 --> 00:22:32.150 align:middle line:90% I'm a gunnysack of gravel. 00:22:32.150 --> 00:22:34.280 align:middle line:90% I'm sudden as a gust of light. 00:22:34.280 --> 00:22:38.720 align:middle line:84% This is just the stunned little interval after another winter, 00:22:38.720 --> 00:22:42.095 align:middle line:84% the held gasp of surprise preceding real wonder." 00:22:42.095 --> 00:22:55.860 align:middle line:90% 00:22:55.860 --> 00:22:58.860 align:middle line:84% This poem, I don't know if I need to say anything about it, 00:22:58.860 --> 00:23:03.720 align:middle line:84% really it was kind of a funny story involved with the people 00:23:03.720 --> 00:23:07.080 align:middle line:84% who pub first-- this is also a pretty old poem-- 00:23:07.080 --> 00:23:10.170 align:middle line:84% who wanted to publish this in a magazine. 00:23:10.170 --> 00:23:14.610 align:middle line:84% There's the second line in it is Shirley's old photographs. 00:23:14.610 --> 00:23:18.690 align:middle line:84% And this magazine was really concerned about getting 00:23:18.690 --> 00:23:20.190 align:middle line:84% sued and stuff, so they called me up 00:23:20.190 --> 00:23:21.520 align:middle line:90% and they said, who's Shirley? 00:23:21.520 --> 00:23:25.170 align:middle line:90% 00:23:25.170 --> 00:23:27.720 align:middle line:90% Are they really her photographs? 00:23:27.720 --> 00:23:29.405 align:middle line:90% And they're old photographs. 00:23:29.405 --> 00:23:30.780 align:middle line:84% They're not photographs she took. 00:23:30.780 --> 00:23:31.980 align:middle line:84% They're photographs she collected. 00:23:31.980 --> 00:23:33.520 align:middle line:84% So I had to explain this to this woman. 00:23:33.520 --> 00:23:34.895 align:middle line:84% She's getting very, very nervous. 00:23:34.895 --> 00:23:37.655 align:middle line:84% And so I said, well, you know, why don't you call Shirley? 00:23:37.655 --> 00:23:39.780 align:middle line:84% And she said, well, how do I get in touch with her? 00:23:39.780 --> 00:23:41.580 align:middle line:84% And I said, well, the easiest way is, 00:23:41.580 --> 00:23:44.520 align:middle line:84% because Shirley lives out in Laramie, and she's-- 00:23:44.520 --> 00:23:48.300 align:middle line:84% I told this New York City editor, 00:23:48.300 --> 00:23:52.110 align:middle line:84% she's the president of the Albany County Cow-Belles 00:23:52.110 --> 00:24:00.510 align:middle line:84% Association, which is an auxiliary to the StockGrowers 00:24:00.510 --> 00:24:01.320 align:middle line:90% Association. 00:24:01.320 --> 00:24:03.990 align:middle line:84% And these photographs actually appear 00:24:03.990 --> 00:24:09.150 align:middle line:84% in a book that was published by the Albany County Cow-Belles. 00:24:09.150 --> 00:24:11.860 align:middle line:84% It's a book of pictures of one-room schools, 00:24:11.860 --> 00:24:17.040 align:middle line:84% and it was called Cow-Belles Ring School Bells. 00:24:17.040 --> 00:24:17.880 align:middle line:90% So I said, go ahead. 00:24:17.880 --> 00:24:18.480 align:middle line:90% Call her up. 00:24:18.480 --> 00:24:20.328 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:24:20.328 --> 00:24:25.640 align:middle line:84% And it was getting pretty quiet on the other end of the phone. 00:24:25.640 --> 00:24:27.107 align:middle line:84% The poem's called "Booklearning." 00:24:27.107 --> 00:24:28.440 align:middle line:90% She did call her up, by the way. 00:24:28.440 --> 00:24:30.190 align:middle line:84% And I think they talked for several hours. 00:24:30.190 --> 00:24:32.916 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:24:32.916 --> 00:24:34.290 align:middle line:90% 00:24:34.290 --> 00:24:37.830 align:middle line:84% "There are certain constants in Shirley's old photographs 00:24:37.830 --> 00:24:41.340 align:middle line:84% of one-room schools in Albany County, Wyoming. 00:24:41.340 --> 00:24:44.100 align:middle line:84% For one thing, the schoolmarms are the only ones 00:24:44.100 --> 00:24:46.050 align:middle line:90% whose clothes ever fit. 00:24:46.050 --> 00:24:48.040 align:middle line:84% A few depict the pale ragamuffins 00:24:48.040 --> 00:24:51.120 align:middle line:84% on horseback, sometimes three or four astride the one 00:24:51.120 --> 00:24:53.550 align:middle line:90% quixotic nag that brought them. 00:24:53.550 --> 00:24:56.040 align:middle line:84% One shows the four resident scholars 00:24:56.040 --> 00:25:00.420 align:middle line:84% perched on the roof of their log alma mater, massive and gloomy 00:25:00.420 --> 00:25:01.950 align:middle line:90% as a wooden raft. 00:25:01.950 --> 00:25:06.390 align:middle line:84% But most are more formulaic, children mustered against a wall 00:25:06.390 --> 00:25:10.140 align:middle line:84% to stand in gap-toothed rows, wildly varying in height 00:25:10.140 --> 00:25:14.490 align:middle line:84% and age, pale in their tight or tent-like collages of clothes, 00:25:14.490 --> 00:25:18.360 align:middle line:84% their cowboy hats and galoshes, fresh as mushrooms 00:25:18.360 --> 00:25:22.170 align:middle line:84% from the log dark where they learned, too dim to photograph. 00:25:22.170 --> 00:25:25.320 align:middle line:84% Staring straight into the sun of a winter afternoon 00:25:25.320 --> 00:25:27.450 align:middle line:84% chosen for its brilliance, trying 00:25:27.450 --> 00:25:30.060 align:middle line:90% not to blink for long enough. 00:25:30.060 --> 00:25:32.853 align:middle line:84% Indeed, these pictures make Albany County look 00:25:32.853 --> 00:25:34.020 align:middle line:90% much [AUDIO OUT] than it is. 00:25:34.020 --> 00:25:36.210 align:middle line:84% The children look like they are burning up 00:25:36.210 --> 00:25:38.790 align:middle line:90% in so much resisted glare. 00:25:38.790 --> 00:25:40.800 align:middle line:84% Never mind the snowdrift loitering 00:25:40.800 --> 00:25:44.100 align:middle line:84% on the right, even paler than the squinty grimaces. 00:25:44.100 --> 00:25:48.280 align:middle line:84% When they go back in, they'll all go blind awhile again, 00:25:48.280 --> 00:25:51.510 align:middle line:84% this time in darkness, where they could see before. 00:25:51.510 --> 00:25:55.020 align:middle line:84% They are learning things whose relevance to the clear light 00:25:55.020 --> 00:25:57.570 align:middle line:84% they go home in is only promised." 00:25:57.570 --> 00:26:06.228 align:middle line:90% 00:26:06.228 --> 00:26:09.407 align:middle line:84% Yeah, this poem's a little longer, 00:26:09.407 --> 00:26:11.240 align:middle line:84% but I'll go ahead and try to read it anyway. 00:26:11.240 --> 00:26:14.870 align:middle line:84% It's called "Western Civilization." 00:26:14.870 --> 00:26:17.450 align:middle line:90% Get it? 00:26:17.450 --> 00:26:19.370 align:middle line:90% "1. 00:26:19.370 --> 00:26:21.860 align:middle line:84% That woman still lives at her ranch. 00:26:21.860 --> 00:26:23.240 align:middle line:90% You can ask her. 00:26:23.240 --> 00:26:24.470 align:middle line:90% Maybe she knows. 00:26:24.470 --> 00:26:26.720 align:middle line:84% As near and far as the rest of us can tell, 00:26:26.720 --> 00:26:29.750 align:middle line:84% the barn and sheds were built in the Great Depression. 00:26:29.750 --> 00:26:32.660 align:middle line:84% Someone had money and a big idea, 00:26:32.660 --> 00:26:35.870 align:middle line:84% far and away the biggest idea I've ever seen. 00:26:35.870 --> 00:26:38.750 align:middle line:84% Pat says there must have been a hundred men, shepherds 00:26:38.750 --> 00:26:40.700 align:middle line:90% and shearers, working there. 00:26:40.700 --> 00:26:43.970 align:middle line:84% It's one of those things that not only is, but seems, 00:26:43.970 --> 00:26:49.700 align:middle line:84% larger inside than out, like a planetarium or an orange, even 00:26:49.700 --> 00:26:53.900 align:middle line:84% with Wyoming around it and real stars flying away. 00:26:53.900 --> 00:26:55.310 align:middle line:90% Just stick your head in there. 00:26:55.310 --> 00:26:56.900 align:middle line:90% Its dark will make you dizzy. 00:26:56.900 --> 00:27:00.620 align:middle line:84% It has an underneath too low to stand in unless you are a sheep. 00:27:00.620 --> 00:27:04.690 align:middle line:84% The loft vaults like a dusky church. 00:27:04.690 --> 00:27:06.430 align:middle line:90% 2. 00:27:06.430 --> 00:27:09.010 align:middle line:84% All that summer, I balanced water, 00:27:09.010 --> 00:27:13.270 align:middle line:84% coaxing the desert into pasture, with eight cubic feet per second 00:27:13.270 --> 00:27:14.860 align:middle line:90% for two thousand acres. 00:27:14.860 --> 00:27:18.610 align:middle line:84% Horseback, shovel on my shoulder along miles of ditches-- 00:27:18.610 --> 00:27:23.230 align:middle line:84% stalling here, releasing there, water over the deepening green, 00:27:23.230 --> 00:27:24.490 align:middle line:90% keeping it living-- 00:27:24.490 --> 00:27:28.300 align:middle line:84% herons and cranes, regal in meadows, strings of ducklings 00:27:28.300 --> 00:27:31.210 align:middle line:90% frothing the ditch to get away. 00:27:31.210 --> 00:27:32.500 align:middle line:90% 3. 00:27:32.500 --> 00:27:35.200 align:middle line:84% One day riding ditches, I saw Clay. 00:27:35.200 --> 00:27:38.470 align:middle line:84% He was on the hill against the sky, flapping his arms at me. 00:27:38.470 --> 00:27:41.560 align:middle line:84% They were going to bulldoze the corrals at the shearing sheds, 00:27:41.560 --> 00:27:44.110 align:middle line:84% intricate maze of gates and pens Clay 00:27:44.110 --> 00:27:45.940 align:middle line:84% as a kid had built with his father, 00:27:45.940 --> 00:27:49.240 align:middle line:84% before they lost their ranch, before Frank died, 00:27:49.240 --> 00:27:51.880 align:middle line:84% before the family had to move away. 00:27:51.880 --> 00:27:54.640 align:middle line:84% The new owner was razing everything. 00:27:54.640 --> 00:27:57.400 align:middle line:84% I guess he had some kind of idea. 00:27:57.400 --> 00:28:02.170 align:middle line:84% Clay didn't need any gates, but, as Pat said, that's Clay. 00:28:02.170 --> 00:28:03.910 align:middle line:84% I met them at the shearing sheds. 00:28:03.910 --> 00:28:07.490 align:middle line:84% Pat held a wrecking bar like a steel snake. 00:28:07.490 --> 00:28:11.650 align:middle line:84% I just can't stand tearin' apart all them guys's dreams, he said, 00:28:11.650 --> 00:28:12.880 align:middle line:90% looking shy. 00:28:12.880 --> 00:28:16.290 align:middle line:84% Hell is when you know where you are. 00:28:16.290 --> 00:28:18.610 align:middle line:90% 4. 00:28:18.610 --> 00:28:21.820 align:middle line:84% On the barn roof, a loose piece of tin flaps in the wind 00:28:21.820 --> 00:28:23.020 align:middle line:90% like a broken wing. 00:28:23.020 --> 00:28:25.180 align:middle line:90% Wyoming whirls in the sun. 00:28:25.180 --> 00:28:28.900 align:middle line:84% Up in the loft a pair of shears, oh, fifty or sixty years 00:28:28.900 --> 00:28:31.600 align:middle line:84% forgotten there, floats in noonlight, bearing up 00:28:31.600 --> 00:28:35.530 align:middle line:84% some dust, just a pair of spring-steel scissors, 00:28:35.530 --> 00:28:39.370 align:middle line:84% two knives joined at the hip, with smiling edges. 00:28:39.370 --> 00:28:41.680 align:middle line:84% An owl the color of things left alone 00:28:41.680 --> 00:28:43.810 align:middle line:90% flaps out of the gable door. 00:28:43.810 --> 00:28:45.910 align:middle line:84% Hell is when you know where you are-- 00:28:45.910 --> 00:28:49.930 align:middle line:84% mazes of pens and gates dreaming sheep; miles of ditches 00:28:49.930 --> 00:28:52.030 align:middle line:90% dreaming green. 00:28:52.030 --> 00:28:53.530 align:middle line:90% 5. 00:28:53.530 --> 00:28:56.140 align:middle line:84% No one living knows who built the shearing sheds, 00:28:56.140 --> 00:28:58.270 align:middle line:84% unless maybe that woman, and I'm not 00:28:58.270 --> 00:29:00.730 align:middle line:84% about to ask her, ever since she tried 00:29:00.730 --> 00:29:03.400 align:middle line:84% to stab her husband with a pair of scissors. 00:29:03.400 --> 00:29:06.400 align:middle line:84% He was ninety-one and barely held her off. 00:29:06.400 --> 00:29:08.410 align:middle line:84% Later she claimed she was just trying 00:29:08.410 --> 00:29:11.560 align:middle line:84% to cut his heart medication out of his shirt pocket-- 00:29:11.560 --> 00:29:13.210 align:middle line:90% dope, she called it-- 00:29:13.210 --> 00:29:15.280 align:middle line:84% and the old man had to leave the ranch, where 00:29:15.280 --> 00:29:17.000 align:middle line:90% he didn't last long. 00:29:17.000 --> 00:29:18.700 align:middle line:90% They bulldozed the corrals. 00:29:18.700 --> 00:29:20.350 align:middle line:90% We got forty gates. 00:29:20.350 --> 00:29:23.230 align:middle line:90% We took them someplace safe. 00:29:23.230 --> 00:29:26.620 align:middle line:84% Now the vast, dim barn floats like an ocean liner 00:29:26.620 --> 00:29:29.470 align:middle line:84% whose doldrums are meadows spinning into brush, 00:29:29.470 --> 00:29:32.530 align:middle line:84% and everywhere you look Wyoming hurries off. 00:29:32.530 --> 00:29:35.470 align:middle line:84% All night the stars make their escape. 00:29:35.470 --> 00:29:38.530 align:middle line:84% In the loft a pair of shears cuts woolly moonlight. 00:29:38.530 --> 00:29:41.530 align:middle line:84% All day a piece of roofing slaps in the wind. 00:29:41.530 --> 00:29:44.020 align:middle line:84% A startled owl flaps out of the gable. 00:29:44.020 --> 00:29:46.600 align:middle line:84% Hell is when where you know where are, and it's beautiful. 00:29:46.600 --> 00:29:48.520 align:middle line:90% You saved the gates for nothing. 00:29:48.520 --> 00:29:51.490 align:middle line:84% You balanced the water to keep the green from spinning away 00:29:51.490 --> 00:29:55.495 align:middle line:84% into sage, same gray as the wing that just now shaded your eyes." 00:29:55.495 --> 00:30:00.828 align:middle line:90% 00:30:00.828 --> 00:30:01.370 align:middle line:90% I don't know. 00:30:01.370 --> 00:30:05.524 align:middle line:84% I'm not sure I should read this poem it's really not PC at all. 00:30:05.524 --> 00:30:07.332 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] Come on. 00:30:07.332 --> 00:30:08.290 align:middle line:90% You want me to read it? 00:30:08.290 --> 00:30:08.800 align:middle line:90% Please. 00:30:08.800 --> 00:30:11.920 align:middle line:90% It's pretty bad, Dennis. 00:30:11.920 --> 00:30:13.000 align:middle line:90% OK, I'll give a try. 00:30:13.000 --> 00:30:15.970 align:middle line:84% Actually, it's OK, because it's all quotes, this poem. 00:30:15.970 --> 00:30:18.880 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:30:18.880 --> 00:30:21.982 align:middle line:90% I didn't say any of it. 00:30:21.982 --> 00:30:23.440 align:middle line:84% The poem is called "Rintrah Roars," 00:30:23.440 --> 00:30:28.540 align:middle line:84% which refers to one of Blake's crazy emanations. 00:30:28.540 --> 00:30:35.980 align:middle line:84% And at least in the poem that I got sort of inspired by, 00:30:35.980 --> 00:30:40.150 align:middle line:84% Rintrah is the just wrath of the prophet. 00:30:40.150 --> 00:30:43.900 align:middle line:84% And since I'm no prophet, I had to just use prophetic quotes 00:30:43.900 --> 00:30:45.640 align:middle line:90% that I heard one week. 00:30:45.640 --> 00:30:48.660 align:middle line:90% 00:30:48.660 --> 00:30:52.020 align:middle line:84% Giotto, you know, is the Italian medieval painter 00:30:52.020 --> 00:30:55.720 align:middle line:90% who liked Saint Francis a lot. 00:30:55.720 --> 00:31:01.570 align:middle line:84% And I think everything else is pretty clear. 00:31:01.570 --> 00:31:03.640 align:middle line:90% Maybe it's too clear. 00:31:03.640 --> 00:31:05.800 align:middle line:84% "My father-in-law writes from Umbria, 00:31:05.800 --> 00:31:09.790 align:middle line:84% where peasants eat songbirds for lunch and pray beneath frescoes 00:31:09.790 --> 00:31:10.870 align:middle line:90% by Giotto-- 00:31:10.870 --> 00:31:14.830 align:middle line:84% Saturday, 30 January, last day of the season wherein 00:31:14.830 --> 00:31:18.010 align:middle line:90% big men can kill little birds. 00:31:18.010 --> 00:31:21.250 align:middle line:84% Lyndon Johnson, while being escorted by a young marine who 00:31:21.250 --> 00:31:25.060 align:middle line:84% said, 'That one over there is your helicopter, Sir,' replied, 00:31:25.060 --> 00:31:27.850 align:middle line:84% placing his arm around the boy, 'Son, they're all 00:31:27.850 --> 00:31:28.555 align:middle line:90% my helicopters.' 00:31:28.555 --> 00:31:31.630 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:31:31.630 --> 00:31:33.820 align:middle line:84% Sam said, 'I might be white bread, 00:31:33.820 --> 00:31:37.960 align:middle line:84% but there is one pissed-off nigger in my heart.' 00:31:37.960 --> 00:31:40.420 align:middle line:84% McPherson says he doesn't see anything 00:31:40.420 --> 00:31:42.790 align:middle line:84% in the world worth coming back for. 00:31:42.790 --> 00:31:45.610 align:middle line:84% He wants to get off the wheel, says, 00:31:45.610 --> 00:31:47.870 align:middle line:84% 'I don't want to come back as anything-- 00:31:47.870 --> 00:31:50.200 align:middle line:90% not even a bumblebee.' 00:31:50.200 --> 00:31:53.650 align:middle line:84% So I say, 'Oh, Jim, you'd make a good bumblebee.' 00:31:53.650 --> 00:31:56.920 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:31:56.920 --> 00:31:58.210 align:middle line:90% But I was thinking-- 00:31:58.210 --> 00:32:02.020 align:middle line:84% That should be enough for anybody's God. 00:32:02.020 --> 00:32:07.330 align:middle line:84% Pruitt said, 'Man, I wouldn't fuck her with your dick.' 00:32:07.330 --> 00:32:10.330 align:middle line:84% It would be trite to describe the clocksmith's house-- 00:32:10.330 --> 00:32:13.090 align:middle line:84% the way it sounded like bees in there. 00:32:13.090 --> 00:32:16.150 align:middle line:84% 'You can never have enough clocks in your house.' 00:32:16.150 --> 00:32:19.030 align:middle line:84% This from a man who had thousands in his. 00:32:19.030 --> 00:32:22.250 align:middle line:84% I asked, 'You probably don't even hear them anymore.' 00:32:22.250 --> 00:32:26.830 align:middle line:84% He said, 'I hear them when they stop.' 00:32:26.830 --> 00:32:29.950 align:middle line:84% Lyle said, 'It's all right to be a fool; 00:32:29.950 --> 00:32:34.090 align:middle line:84% it's just not all right to be a old fool.' 00:32:34.090 --> 00:32:36.640 align:middle line:84% Steve, the banjo wasn't all they smashed. 00:32:36.640 --> 00:32:37.990 align:middle line:90% It was every window. 00:32:37.990 --> 00:32:40.030 align:middle line:90% It was every thing I had. 00:32:40.030 --> 00:32:41.590 align:middle line:84% You don't want to feel the wind blow 00:32:41.590 --> 00:32:44.300 align:middle line:90% through your house that way. 00:32:44.300 --> 00:32:47.260 align:middle line:84% Another friend said, 'I am chained to the earth to pay 00:32:47.260 --> 00:32:55.430 align:middle line:90% for the freedom of my eyes.'" 00:32:55.430 --> 00:32:55.930 align:middle line:90% Yeah. 00:32:55.930 --> 00:32:59.510 align:middle line:90% 00:32:59.510 --> 00:33:02.120 align:middle line:90% "Expecting Company." 00:33:02.120 --> 00:33:05.510 align:middle line:84% "Death is when the outside world wants to get away from itself 00:33:05.510 --> 00:33:07.880 align:middle line:90% by going inside of someone. 00:33:07.880 --> 00:33:09.380 align:middle line:90% Till the walls cave in. 00:33:09.380 --> 00:33:10.850 align:middle line:90% Till the roof is gone. 00:33:10.850 --> 00:33:13.920 align:middle line:84% I'm floating face up on a sea of adrenaline. 00:33:13.920 --> 00:33:16.430 align:middle line:84% A broken window hangs around my neck. 00:33:16.430 --> 00:33:18.410 align:middle line:84% I have to make more room in here. 00:33:18.410 --> 00:33:19.940 align:middle line:84% I have to get rid of the furniture." 00:33:19.940 --> 00:33:33.670 align:middle line:90% 00:33:33.670 --> 00:33:36.625 align:middle line:90% I'll read a couple more poems. 00:33:36.625 --> 00:33:40.230 align:middle line:90% 00:33:40.230 --> 00:33:45.180 align:middle line:90% It's "Christmas, 1960." 00:33:45.180 --> 00:33:48.810 align:middle line:84% "Some of my friends were hoping for BB guns. 00:33:48.810 --> 00:33:50.520 align:middle line:90% I had it over them. 00:33:50.520 --> 00:33:53.550 align:middle line:90% My dad gave me a .30-.30. 00:33:53.550 --> 00:33:55.560 align:middle line:90% What a great guy. 00:33:55.560 --> 00:33:57.840 align:middle line:84% He gave me-- [AUDIO OUT] and when I fired it, 00:33:57.840 --> 00:34:00.210 align:middle line:84% he always stood behind me to catch me 00:34:00.210 --> 00:34:02.640 align:middle line:90% when it always knocked me down. 00:34:02.640 --> 00:34:05.400 align:middle line:84% He was getting me ready to kill a deer that fall. 00:34:05.400 --> 00:34:08.639 align:middle line:84% He taught me to sit stone still in a rock outcrop 00:34:08.639 --> 00:34:10.290 align:middle line:90% at the bottom of a draw. 00:34:10.290 --> 00:34:12.150 align:middle line:84% He was going to drive the deer down 00:34:12.150 --> 00:34:14.699 align:middle line:90% to me, close enough to kill. 00:34:14.699 --> 00:34:18.150 align:middle line:84% Even a child could kill that close. 00:34:18.150 --> 00:34:21.120 align:middle line:84% The other thing he taught me was the 20-minute nap, 00:34:21.120 --> 00:34:23.190 align:middle line:84% the way you get your sleep in war. 00:34:23.190 --> 00:34:25.199 align:middle line:90% We practiced daily. 00:34:25.199 --> 00:34:27.600 align:middle line:84% Like somebody threw a rock through the window from 00:34:27.600 --> 00:34:30.389 align:middle line:84% the outside and covered the bed with broken glass, 00:34:30.389 --> 00:34:33.870 align:middle line:84% that's how I lay next to my father on the bed while he took 00:34:33.870 --> 00:34:37.409 align:middle line:84% this 20-minute nap, breathing in through his nose and out through 00:34:37.409 --> 00:34:38.100 align:middle line:90% his mouth. 00:34:38.100 --> 00:34:42.540 align:middle line:84% And I lay there, light beside him, under orders. 00:34:42.540 --> 00:34:44.400 align:middle line:90% It wasn't child abuse. 00:34:44.400 --> 00:34:46.139 align:middle line:90% He never touched me. 00:34:46.139 --> 00:34:49.170 align:middle line:84% I would have levitated if he taught me that. 00:34:49.170 --> 00:34:50.820 align:middle line:90% I wasn't napping. 00:34:50.820 --> 00:34:54.090 align:middle line:84% I was not daring to move, for fear he'd wake. 00:34:54.090 --> 00:34:57.870 align:middle line:84% I was paying attention to the aspen wood paneling, the knots 00:34:57.870 --> 00:34:59.070 align:middle line:90% like birds' eyes in the-- 00:34:59.070 --> 00:35:01.200 align:middle line:84% [AUDIO OUT] like Ophelia was how I 00:35:01.200 --> 00:35:05.460 align:middle line:84% felt, as the raptors' eyes grew faces, wings. 00:35:05.460 --> 00:35:08.610 align:middle line:84% My face felt like it was pushing through from the other side 00:35:08.610 --> 00:35:10.170 align:middle line:90% of a looking glass. 00:35:10.170 --> 00:35:12.870 align:middle line:84% Could I have floated like the dead? 00:35:12.870 --> 00:35:17.310 align:middle line:84% I would, but like the living, sank. 00:35:17.310 --> 00:35:21.150 align:middle line:84% The birds with eyes, not all of them friendly, swirled over me. 00:35:21.150 --> 00:35:24.690 align:middle line:84% I saw a drop of blood at the center of everything. 00:35:24.690 --> 00:35:26.700 align:middle line:90% I knew what God was. 00:35:26.700 --> 00:35:29.910 align:middle line:84% I knew I was my father's little teddy bear of stone." 00:35:29.910 --> 00:35:35.280 align:middle line:90% 00:35:35.280 --> 00:35:38.040 align:middle line:90% "Postcard." 00:35:38.040 --> 00:35:42.870 align:middle line:84% "Days are cubes of light that equal each other. 00:35:42.870 --> 00:35:45.870 align:middle line:84% Whether anything happens in them or not, 00:35:45.870 --> 00:35:50.880 align:middle line:84% no matter what anyone did or didn't do, they are equal. 00:35:50.880 --> 00:35:53.280 align:middle line:84% The emptiest are lovely, though one 00:35:53.280 --> 00:35:56.010 align:middle line:84% is drawn to the bright-edged shards of days 00:35:56.010 --> 00:35:59.730 align:middle line:84% that cracked from disappointment and longing. 00:35:59.730 --> 00:36:02.280 align:middle line:84% Some days I go looking for oceans. 00:36:02.280 --> 00:36:05.640 align:middle line:84% If I find one, I search the beach for the teeth 00:36:05.640 --> 00:36:11.100 align:middle line:84% I left in a glass of water in a motel room in Nebraska. 00:36:11.100 --> 00:36:14.040 align:middle line:84% I'm losing the ability to tremble. 00:36:14.040 --> 00:36:16.980 align:middle line:90% I find appearances helpful. 00:36:16.980 --> 00:36:20.500 align:middle line:84% Some days I go looking for the sky." 00:36:20.500 --> 00:36:22.000 align:middle line:90% Thanks. 00:36:22.000 --> 00:36:25.350 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:36:25.350 --> 00:36:38.048 align:middle line:90%