WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.980 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.980 --> 00:00:03.930 align:middle line:84% I have either one or more from Ancient Light, 00:00:03.930 --> 00:00:05.790 align:middle line:84% or one from Ancient Light and a new one. 00:00:05.790 --> 00:00:06.720 align:middle line:90% What do you think, both of them? 00:00:06.720 --> 00:00:07.980 align:middle line:90% OK, he's saying both of them. 00:00:07.980 --> 00:00:08.600 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHS] 00:00:08.600 --> 00:00:11.190 align:middle line:90% I feel so blessed here. 00:00:11.190 --> 00:00:19.130 align:middle line:84% So as Elizabeth said that part of this book 00:00:19.130 --> 00:00:24.360 align:middle line:84% attends to what we experienced in the pandemic. 00:00:24.360 --> 00:00:30.830 align:middle line:84% And towards the end, I also think about how 00:00:30.830 --> 00:00:34.530 align:middle line:90% we needed to reenter the world. 00:00:34.530 --> 00:00:37.610 align:middle line:84% And weren't you just a little bit afraid? 00:00:37.610 --> 00:00:41.480 align:middle line:84% Weren't you just afraid of what you might encounter, 00:00:41.480 --> 00:00:42.470 align:middle line:90% or you might get sick. 00:00:42.470 --> 00:00:44.160 align:middle line:84% Or whatever, it was just different. 00:00:44.160 --> 00:00:45.530 align:middle line:90% It was a different world. 00:00:45.530 --> 00:00:50.430 align:middle line:84% And this is a poem that attends to many things, but partly that. 00:00:50.430 --> 00:00:54.530 align:middle line:84% And also, I think right now, many of us 00:00:54.530 --> 00:00:57.620 align:middle line:84% are trying to find our sea legs in what's 00:00:57.620 --> 00:00:59.400 align:middle line:90% happening in this country. 00:00:59.400 --> 00:01:06.092 align:middle line:84% And it speaks to that too, like, how do we do that, right? 00:01:06.092 --> 00:01:09.770 align:middle line:90% So this is called Quiescence. 00:01:09.770 --> 00:01:10.790 align:middle line:90% One. 00:01:10.790 --> 00:01:13.950 align:middle line:90% Soft pampas grass. 00:01:13.950 --> 00:01:19.730 align:middle line:84% We bed down like deer, rest after the dying. 00:01:19.730 --> 00:01:23.550 align:middle line:90% Spirits all walk toward horizon. 00:01:23.550 --> 00:01:29.060 align:middle line:84% Transform against the evening chrysalis of sky. 00:01:29.060 --> 00:01:30.590 align:middle line:90% Two. 00:01:30.590 --> 00:01:34.560 align:middle line:84% You feed me your dark-eyed loneliness, 00:01:34.560 --> 00:01:37.400 align:middle line:90% wisdom from Dr. Fauci. 00:01:37.400 --> 00:01:44.460 align:middle line:84% And sectors of tangerine, small as my thumb, scent the air. 00:01:44.460 --> 00:01:50.030 align:middle line:84% Everything is shrunken or overblown now. 00:01:50.030 --> 00:01:54.380 align:middle line:84% I am undressing, blue jeans, flannel. 00:01:54.380 --> 00:02:00.030 align:middle line:84% My polished toes naked in the damp, tickling fronds. 00:02:00.030 --> 00:02:04.820 align:middle line:84% The bottom of my feet tender as story. 00:02:04.820 --> 00:02:06.230 align:middle line:90% Three. 00:02:06.230 --> 00:02:10.410 align:middle line:84% Soon we are turning to black and white. 00:02:10.410 --> 00:02:16.020 align:middle line:84% 100 years ago, just before Betty White was born, 00:02:16.020 --> 00:02:20.310 align:middle line:84% just before that other dying time, 00:02:20.310 --> 00:02:27.210 align:middle line:84% those epidemic faces framed like myth in our eyes. 00:02:27.210 --> 00:02:31.520 align:middle line:90% Everyone sainted but us. 00:02:31.520 --> 00:02:32.810 align:middle line:90% Four. 00:02:32.810 --> 00:02:35.400 align:middle line:90% We tether ourselves. 00:02:35.400 --> 00:02:39.360 align:middle line:90% But things grow out of control. 00:02:39.360 --> 00:02:42.390 align:middle line:90% Network images on repeat. 00:02:42.390 --> 00:02:48.240 align:middle line:84% Guns and knees, shattered windows, and black death. 00:02:48.240 --> 00:02:51.710 align:middle line:90% Plague upon plague. 00:02:51.710 --> 00:02:52.856 align:middle line:90% Five. 00:02:52.856 --> 00:02:59.420 align:middle line:84% I keep seeing the picture of elk, its antlers turn to tree. 00:02:59.420 --> 00:03:05.660 align:middle line:84% Bare black branches silhouetted against a stormy sky. 00:03:05.660 --> 00:03:11.100 align:middle line:90% In that tangle a singing bird. 00:03:11.100 --> 00:03:12.510 align:middle line:90% Six. 00:03:12.510 --> 00:03:17.170 align:middle line:84% Let us stand now where the grass is tall. 00:03:17.170 --> 00:03:21.970 align:middle line:84% Settle our legs there among the growing. 00:03:21.970 --> 00:03:28.690 align:middle line:84% Listen, like all forlorn, for the least crackle of air 00:03:28.690 --> 00:03:33.540 align:middle line:84% until nocturnal bats hum our names. 00:03:33.540 --> 00:03:39.520 align:middle line:84% Perhaps then we shall feel edges splintering. 00:03:39.520 --> 00:03:43.810 align:middle line:84% How soon a bow, a stem, a tributary. 00:03:43.810 --> 00:03:50.160 align:middle line:84% How soon we too shall antler like Deer Woman. 00:03:50.160 --> 00:03:51.580 align:middle line:90% Seven. 00:03:51.580 --> 00:03:59.430 align:middle line:84% Yes, rise now, after the dying, thick-necked and sturdy, 00:03:59.430 --> 00:04:04.440 align:middle line:84% russet with hope, await the perch of bird. 00:04:04.440 --> 00:04:07.140 align:middle line:90% 00:04:07.140 --> 00:04:10.490 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:04:10.490 --> 00:04:11.000 align:middle line:90%