WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.416 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:03.416 --> 00:00:13.680 align:middle line:90% 00:00:13.680 --> 00:00:15.040 align:middle line:90% Good evening. 00:00:15.040 --> 00:00:16.059 align:middle line:90% Thanks for coming. 00:00:16.059 --> 00:00:21.320 align:middle line:84% I'm excited to be in Tucson for the first time in my life. 00:00:21.320 --> 00:00:27.320 align:middle line:84% And to be in such a beautiful world, a world 00:00:27.320 --> 00:00:30.280 align:middle line:84% within the world I thought I knew. 00:00:30.280 --> 00:00:32.000 align:middle line:84% I think I'll start by-- well, what 00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:36.080 align:middle line:84% I would like to do with your approval is to read back 00:00:36.080 --> 00:00:38.360 align:middle line:84% and forth between poems and excerpts 00:00:38.360 --> 00:00:42.040 align:middle line:84% from Fear Less: Poetry in Perilous Times, which I see 00:00:42.040 --> 00:00:46.440 align:middle line:84% as a treatise on the indispensability of poetry 00:00:46.440 --> 00:00:50.640 align:middle line:84% in human life, and especially in times that are fearsome, 00:00:50.640 --> 00:00:53.600 align:middle line:84% like the one in which we find ourselves. 00:00:53.600 --> 00:00:55.560 align:middle line:84% So I thought I would start with a poem that's 00:00:55.560 --> 00:01:01.920 align:middle line:84% in praise of an astonishing landscape, 00:01:01.920 --> 00:01:07.990 align:middle line:84% because years ago, I visited the Hill Country in Texas. 00:01:07.990 --> 00:01:12.050 align:middle line:84% A place so different from New York, where I lived at the time, 00:01:12.050 --> 00:01:16.830 align:middle line:84% that I wanted to just capture everything that I had seen, 00:01:16.830 --> 00:01:20.630 align:middle line:84% observed, and been astonished by in a poem. 00:01:20.630 --> 00:01:23.470 align:middle line:84% So I sat outside the little cottage where I was staying 00:01:23.470 --> 00:01:24.950 align:middle line:90% and wrote this poem. 00:01:24.950 --> 00:01:28.150 align:middle line:84% And I want to do that tomorrow here. 00:01:28.150 --> 00:01:33.270 align:middle line:84% But in the meantime, I thought I would share this. 00:01:33.270 --> 00:01:36.070 align:middle line:90% "Hill Country." 00:01:36.070 --> 00:01:41.310 align:middle line:84% He comes down from the hills, from the craggy rock, 00:01:41.310 --> 00:01:44.870 align:middle line:84% the shrubs, the scrawny live oaks 00:01:44.870 --> 00:01:48.790 align:middle line:84% and dried up junipers down from the cloud 00:01:48.790 --> 00:01:52.270 align:middle line:84% bellies and the bellies of hawks, 00:01:52.270 --> 00:01:56.110 align:middle line:84% from the caracaras stalking carcasses, 00:01:56.110 --> 00:02:02.110 align:middle line:84% from the clear sun-smacked soundlessness that shrouds him, 00:02:02.110 --> 00:02:08.030 align:middle line:84% from the weathered bed of planks outside the cabin where he goes 00:02:08.030 --> 00:02:11.510 align:middle line:90% to be alone with his questions. 00:02:11.510 --> 00:02:17.430 align:middle line:84% God comes down along the road with his windows unrolled 00:02:17.430 --> 00:02:21.790 align:middle line:84% so the twigs and hanging vines can slap 00:02:21.790 --> 00:02:26.870 align:middle line:84% and scrape against him in his jeep, down past the buck 00:02:26.870 --> 00:02:31.590 align:middle line:84% caught in the hog trap that kicks and heaves, 00:02:31.590 --> 00:02:35.910 align:middle line:84% bloodied, blinded by the whiff of its own death, 00:02:35.910 --> 00:02:41.230 align:middle line:84% which God, thank God, staves off. 00:02:41.230 --> 00:02:46.070 align:middle line:84% He downshifts, crosses the shallow trickle of river 00:02:46.070 --> 00:02:52.910 align:middle line:84% that only just last May scoured the side of the canyon to rock. 00:02:52.910 --> 00:02:58.910 align:middle line:84% Gets out, walks along the limestone bank, castor beans, 00:02:58.910 --> 00:03:04.510 align:middle line:84% cactus, scat of last night's coyotes. 00:03:04.510 --> 00:03:08.190 align:middle line:84% Down below the hilltops, he squints out 00:03:08.190 --> 00:03:12.380 align:middle line:90% at shadow, tree backing tree. 00:03:12.380 --> 00:03:16.340 align:middle line:84% Dark depth the eye glides across, 00:03:16.340 --> 00:03:20.540 align:middle line:84% not bothering to decipher what it hides. 00:03:20.540 --> 00:03:25.300 align:middle line:84% A pair of dragonflies mate in flight. 00:03:25.300 --> 00:03:31.580 align:middle line:84% Tiny flowers throw frantic color at his feet. 00:03:31.580 --> 00:03:38.140 align:middle line:84% If he tries, if he holds his mind in place and wills it, 00:03:38.140 --> 00:03:42.940 align:middle line:84% he can almost believe in something larger than himself, 00:03:42.940 --> 00:03:46.100 align:middle line:90% rearranging the air. 00:03:46.100 --> 00:03:50.340 align:middle line:84% He squints at the jeep, glaring in bright sun. 00:03:50.340 --> 00:03:53.580 align:middle line:84% Stares a while at patterns the tall branches 00:03:53.580 --> 00:03:57.540 align:middle line:84% cast onto the undersides of leaves. 00:03:57.540 --> 00:04:04.720 align:middle line:84% Then God climbs back into the cab, returning to everywhere. 00:04:04.720 --> 00:04:08.010 align:middle line:90% 00:04:08.010 --> 00:04:11.248 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:04:11.248 --> 00:04:12.200 align:middle line:90% 00:04:12.200 --> 00:04:13.970 align:middle line:90% Thank you.