WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.360 align:middle line:90% [SIREN WAILING] 00:00:03.360 --> 00:00:05.725 align:middle line:90% 00:00:05.725 --> 00:00:07.100 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read some new poems, 00:00:07.100 --> 00:00:09.170 align:middle line:84% but first, I'm going to drink the water. 00:00:09.170 --> 00:00:10.660 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] 00:00:10.660 --> 00:00:12.590 align:middle line:84% This is the hardest part of the evening. 00:00:12.590 --> 00:00:15.922 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] 00:00:15.922 --> 00:00:18.790 align:middle line:90% 00:00:18.790 --> 00:00:20.270 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read some new poems. 00:00:20.270 --> 00:00:23.700 align:middle line:90% [SIREN WAILING] 00:00:23.700 --> 00:00:25.170 align:middle line:90% 00:00:25.170 --> 00:00:27.076 align:middle line:84% This one requires no explanation. 00:00:27.076 --> 00:00:29.460 align:middle line:90% [SIREN WAILING] 00:00:29.460 --> 00:00:32.226 align:middle line:84% I was educated for a life in the provinces. 00:00:32.226 --> 00:00:34.050 align:middle line:90% [SIREN WAILING] 00:00:34.050 --> 00:00:36.730 align:middle line:84% I was educated for a life in the provinces 00:00:36.730 --> 00:00:40.320 align:middle line:84% in a place mostly ignored for good reason. 00:00:40.320 --> 00:00:43.410 align:middle line:84% Home was a remnant of a forgotten farm 00:00:43.410 --> 00:00:48.150 align:middle line:84% onto which my parents built a lopsided house on a corner 00:00:48.150 --> 00:00:50.710 align:middle line:84% field, once planted in red clover, 00:00:50.710 --> 00:00:54.270 align:middle line:84% which hummed with the authority of the neighbor's nine hives. 00:00:54.270 --> 00:00:56.770 align:middle line:84% With the autumn violin of crickets, 00:00:56.770 --> 00:01:00.870 align:middle line:84% nighthawk lonesome and whistling in the brush. 00:01:00.870 --> 00:01:04.720 align:middle line:84% I was taught by example and by decree, 00:01:04.720 --> 00:01:07.260 align:middle line:90% which wasn't always nice. 00:01:07.260 --> 00:01:11.880 align:middle line:84% Here is how to trap the mice in the tin cat, how to drown them 00:01:11.880 --> 00:01:13.810 align:middle line:90% in a five-gallon pail. 00:01:13.810 --> 00:01:15.990 align:middle line:84% Here is how to climb the rail fence 00:01:15.990 --> 00:01:19.510 align:middle line:84% and not catch your parts on the crown of barbed wire. 00:01:19.510 --> 00:01:21.810 align:middle line:90% Higher, a little higher. 00:01:21.810 --> 00:01:26.530 align:middle line:84% In church, I learned of Saint Martin betrayed by a goose. 00:01:26.530 --> 00:01:29.680 align:middle line:84% Saint Lucy serving her eyes on a plate. 00:01:29.680 --> 00:01:33.560 align:middle line:84% Job faced down on his heap of ash and lot, 00:01:33.560 --> 00:01:37.090 align:middle line:84% leaving his salty wife to crumble in the dust. 00:01:37.090 --> 00:01:41.320 align:middle line:84% Taken to the prairie moon museum, we marveled at old man 00:01:41.320 --> 00:01:43.640 align:middle line:90% Russia's world of concrete. 00:01:43.640 --> 00:01:45.290 align:middle line:90% The tower of Babel. 00:01:45.290 --> 00:01:48.500 align:middle line:84% Daniel Boone stabbing an unlucky bear. 00:01:48.500 --> 00:01:51.490 align:middle line:84% A cement python with a tin snip tongue 00:01:51.490 --> 00:01:54.760 align:middle line:84% forever tasting sand prairie air. 00:01:54.760 --> 00:01:58.820 align:middle line:84% Rush sat next to his wash boilers full of snakes. 00:01:58.820 --> 00:02:01.360 align:middle line:84% A pot choked with a live snapper. 00:02:01.360 --> 00:02:04.970 align:middle line:84% Quonset huts stuffed with the miraculous things. 00:02:04.970 --> 00:02:05.782 align:middle line:90% Arrowheads. 00:02:05.782 --> 00:02:07.910 align:middle line:90% A hundred-foot grapevine. 00:02:07.910 --> 00:02:12.380 align:middle line:84% Taxidermied fox and rabbit eternally trapped in a log. 00:02:12.380 --> 00:02:15.680 align:middle line:84% In school I learned of the Peshtigo Fire. 00:02:15.680 --> 00:02:17.180 align:middle line:90% How to make pudding. 00:02:17.180 --> 00:02:19.300 align:middle line:90% How to build a little shelf. 00:02:19.300 --> 00:02:22.930 align:middle line:84% I learned the breeds and colors of every kind of cow. 00:02:22.930 --> 00:02:25.150 align:middle line:84% Which sheep to graze in an orchard? 00:02:25.150 --> 00:02:26.960 align:middle line:90% Which on rough range? 00:02:26.960 --> 00:02:28.880 align:middle line:90% Whose wool had better crimp? 00:02:28.880 --> 00:02:31.850 align:middle line:84% Which grew the best marbling in the meat. 00:02:31.850 --> 00:02:34.820 align:middle line:84% On the class trip to the chick hatchery, 00:02:34.820 --> 00:02:38.810 align:middle line:84% we saw the sea of yellow fluff peeping down a chute, 00:02:38.810 --> 00:02:42.460 align:middle line:84% picked and poked with a vaccine beak-tipped shorn 00:02:42.460 --> 00:02:46.750 align:middle line:84% with a hot wire, the halt and the lame falling to a bin 00:02:46.750 --> 00:02:49.900 align:middle line:84% to be ground into mush for the minks. 00:02:49.900 --> 00:02:53.590 align:middle line:84% I learned squeals, I learned stinks. 00:02:53.590 --> 00:02:56.810 align:middle line:84% At 15 I was behind the wheel of a truck. 00:02:56.810 --> 00:03:00.530 align:middle line:84% It was my job to keep in a state of miraculous repair, 00:03:00.530 --> 00:03:02.260 align:middle line:90% keep unstuck. 00:03:02.260 --> 00:03:06.740 align:middle line:84% I was taught much for a life everyone thinks I left behind. 00:03:06.740 --> 00:03:08.380 align:middle line:90% Where is behind? 00:03:08.380 --> 00:03:10.830 align:middle line:90% Just what has been abandoned? 00:03:10.830 --> 00:03:16.510 align:middle line:84% Wherever I am I am prepared to reap or to kill, to castrate 00:03:16.510 --> 00:03:17.810 align:middle line:90% or to shear. 00:03:17.810 --> 00:03:21.330 align:middle line:90% I am there, here still. 00:03:21.330 --> 00:03:23.000 align:middle line:90%