WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.480 align:middle line:90% 00:00:05.480 --> 00:00:08.210 align:middle line:90% Blood, soil. 00:00:08.210 --> 00:00:09.900 align:middle line:90% Residential neighborhood. 00:00:09.900 --> 00:00:11.300 align:middle line:90% Madison, Alabama. 00:00:11.300 --> 00:00:17.990 align:middle line:90% 00:00:17.990 --> 00:00:20.840 align:middle line:84% I slouch to the writing, sideways. 00:00:20.840 --> 00:00:26.550 align:middle line:84% Crab limbs cling to the torso in tumult, where my elbows bowl in, 00:00:26.550 --> 00:00:30.300 align:middle line:84% my knees keel to my feet, scraping off the carpet, 00:00:30.300 --> 00:00:33.180 align:middle line:84% frothing this writing body to the desk. 00:00:33.180 --> 00:00:35.190 align:middle line:90% My reluctance is quicksand. 00:00:35.190 --> 00:00:36.360 align:middle line:90% This lyric led. 00:00:36.360 --> 00:00:41.690 align:middle line:84% I can't know how each fist knots, each knuckle locks. 00:00:41.690 --> 00:00:43.640 align:middle line:90% I can't know. 00:00:43.640 --> 00:00:45.000 align:middle line:90% His legs refuse. 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:47.460 align:middle line:90% Gravity legs coil on pavement. 00:00:47.460 --> 00:00:49.410 align:middle line:90% His torso goes limp. 00:00:49.410 --> 00:00:53.720 align:middle line:84% Keens quiet away from the dash cam. 00:00:53.720 --> 00:00:57.336 align:middle line:90% His head, its dread stillness. 00:00:57.336 --> 00:01:00.530 align:middle line:90% 00:01:00.530 --> 00:01:04.099 align:middle line:90% મેં કહયું No English. 00:01:04.099 --> 00:01:05.519 align:middle line:90% Indian. 00:01:05.519 --> 00:01:07.890 align:middle line:90% Walking. 00:01:07.890 --> 00:01:11.290 align:middle line:90% મેં કહયું My handkerchief fell. 00:01:11.290 --> 00:01:14.820 align:middle line:90% I was brought down on the grass. 00:01:14.820 --> 00:01:18.030 align:middle line:84% The law says to every action, there is always 00:01:18.030 --> 00:01:20.650 align:middle line:90% an opposite and equal reaction. 00:01:20.650 --> 00:01:21.790 align:middle line:90% That's Newton. 00:01:21.790 --> 00:01:24.310 align:middle line:90% Therefore, a handkerchief falls. 00:01:24.310 --> 00:01:26.410 align:middle line:84% Therefore, the shoulder blades blanch. 00:01:26.410 --> 00:01:29.050 align:middle line:84% Therefore, they offer his body to the sky. 00:01:29.050 --> 00:01:31.120 align:middle line:90% Therefore, heave it weightless. 00:01:31.120 --> 00:01:34.450 align:middle line:84% Therefore, wrap it to the frame, because he is no matter. 00:01:34.450 --> 00:01:38.410 align:middle line:84% He is flinch, thin as linen, light en plein air. 00:01:38.410 --> 00:01:40.330 align:middle line:90% But there is more of him-- 00:01:40.330 --> 00:01:44.580 align:middle line:84% more where the skull folds, more where the chest plows over, 00:01:44.580 --> 00:01:47.530 align:middle line:84% more where one body pushes into another, 00:01:47.530 --> 00:01:50.820 align:middle line:84% pushes a therefore into asphalt, plows 00:01:50.820 --> 00:01:53.850 align:middle line:90% the life of blood and soil. 00:01:53.850 --> 00:01:58.960 align:middle line:84% Therefore, they hold it here, a land dry as swatches of bone. 00:01:58.960 --> 00:02:02.230 align:middle line:84% Here, drowned, sound of flesh on the ground. 00:02:02.230 --> 00:02:03.130 align:middle line:90% Hold it here. 00:02:03.130 --> 00:02:08.100 align:middle line:84% Land of more, land of more, land of more. 00:02:08.100 --> 00:02:12.850 align:middle line:90% Hey, buddy, Where do you live? 00:02:12.850 --> 00:02:15.850 align:middle line:90% Where are you going? 00:02:15.850 --> 00:02:18.292 align:middle line:90% Hey, buddy. 00:02:18.292 --> 00:02:19.125 align:middle line:90% Where are you going? 00:02:19.125 --> 00:02:21.700 align:middle line:90% 00:02:21.700 --> 00:02:24.400 align:middle line:90% Where do you live? 00:02:24.400 --> 00:02:26.740 align:middle line:90% A yard is a measure. 00:02:26.740 --> 00:02:29.800 align:middle line:90% A curb, its end. 00:02:29.800 --> 00:02:34.690 align:middle line:84% This is how a landscape renders a portrait, as Long 00:02:34.690 --> 00:02:38.210 align:middle line:84% and as wide as hemmed-in history of linen. 00:02:38.210 --> 00:02:39.260 align:middle line:90% Was it white? 00:02:39.260 --> 00:02:42.160 align:middle line:84% Like the ones my father threw in the wash, soggy 00:02:42.160 --> 00:02:43.940 align:middle line:90% from the day at the plant. 00:02:43.940 --> 00:02:44.740 align:middle line:90% Or checkered? 00:02:44.740 --> 00:02:47.810 align:middle line:84% Like the cotton ones he picked for Sunday mass. 00:02:47.810 --> 00:02:48.730 align:middle line:90% Or Embroidered? 00:02:48.730 --> 00:02:51.440 align:middle line:84% Like The one in custody at the museum, 00:02:51.440 --> 00:02:54.010 align:middle line:84% a silk square with Krishna flanked 00:02:54.010 --> 00:02:55.880 align:middle line:90% by gopis, holding lilies-- 00:02:55.880 --> 00:02:58.340 align:middle line:84% blood-tipped, bone-white and buttered, 00:02:58.340 --> 00:03:01.790 align:middle line:84% its edges worn from worry or waiting. 00:03:01.790 --> 00:03:04.930 align:middle line:84% Or was it a measure of cotton slung around necks 00:03:04.930 --> 00:03:07.330 align:middle line:84% by thugs to make a noose from a slung 00:03:07.330 --> 00:03:10.610 align:middle line:84% loop of a rumal, a coin anointed for Kali, 00:03:10.610 --> 00:03:13.870 align:middle line:84% lashed to one end and a life dwindling at the other-- 00:03:13.870 --> 00:03:16.910 align:middle line:84% to wrangle the traveler, then strangle that stranger? 00:03:16.910 --> 00:03:19.650 align:middle line:90% 00:03:19.650 --> 00:03:22.140 align:middle line:90% You want to stand up? 00:03:22.140 --> 00:03:24.750 align:middle line:90% No? 00:03:24.750 --> 00:03:27.300 align:middle line:90% You OK? 00:03:27.300 --> 00:03:30.120 align:middle line:90% No. 00:03:30.120 --> 00:03:33.130 align:middle line:90% Can you stand up? 00:03:33.130 --> 00:03:33.630 align:middle line:90% No. 00:03:33.630 --> 00:03:36.330 align:middle line:90% 00:03:36.330 --> 00:03:37.483 align:middle line:90% You understand English? 00:03:37.483 --> 00:03:40.050 align:middle line:90% 00:03:40.050 --> 00:03:41.195 align:middle line:90% You understand English? 00:03:41.195 --> 00:03:46.390 align:middle line:90% 00:03:46.390 --> 00:03:46.890 align:middle line:90% No. 00:03:46.890 --> 00:03:50.490 align:middle line:90% 00:03:50.490 --> 00:03:54.960 align:middle line:84% The law says, the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other 00:03:54.960 --> 00:03:59.820 align:middle line:84% are always equal and directed to contrary parts. 00:03:59.820 --> 00:04:04.330 align:middle line:84% But his body was one of two that couldn't speak of its place. 00:04:04.330 --> 00:04:07.450 align:middle line:84% Therefore, they swept leg under leg. 00:04:07.450 --> 00:04:10.390 align:middle line:84% Therefore, made him look close at the land, 00:04:10.390 --> 00:04:15.300 align:middle line:84% made him taste the verge between walk and veer. 00:04:15.300 --> 00:04:19.720 align:middle line:84% The law says, if you press a stone with your finger, 00:04:19.720 --> 00:04:22.640 align:middle line:84% the finger is also pressed by the stone. 00:04:22.640 --> 00:04:25.600 align:middle line:84% Therefore, with these fingers, I will 00:04:25.600 --> 00:04:29.480 align:middle line:84% not a garland of buds plucked from the camphor weed, 00:04:29.480 --> 00:04:32.170 align:middle line:84% flailing on the curb, where cuffed 00:04:32.170 --> 00:04:34.870 align:middle line:90% by the soft folds of his neck. 00:04:34.870 --> 00:04:39.550 align:middle line:84% His spine snapped and swelled, and therefore, we 00:04:39.550 --> 00:04:43.910 align:middle line:84% will wear its scratchy robe for another century of stony sleep, 00:04:43.910 --> 00:04:46.770 align:middle line:84% until our thunder feels more like survival. 00:04:46.770 --> 00:04:53.020 align:middle line:90% 00:04:53.020 --> 00:04:57.700 align:middle line:84% The title for that poem, Blood and Soil, 00:04:57.700 --> 00:05:03.070 align:middle line:84% is an English translation of the German phrase, Blut-und-Boden-- 00:05:03.070 --> 00:05:06.190 align:middle line:84% which was, by the way, chanted during the Charlottesville 00:05:06.190 --> 00:05:07.300 align:middle line:90% riots-- 00:05:07.300 --> 00:05:09.800 align:middle line:84% conducted and carried out by white supremacists 00:05:09.800 --> 00:05:11.360 align:middle line:90% not many years ago. 00:05:11.360 --> 00:05:15.220 align:middle line:84% And I want you to think about the evocation of soil, 00:05:15.220 --> 00:05:18.070 align:middle line:84% and land, and the purity of blood 00:05:18.070 --> 00:05:20.240 align:middle line:90% now in our current discourse. 00:05:20.240 --> 00:05:25.770 align:middle line:84% And keep in mind blood and soil and how it's being used as well.