WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.000 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.000 --> 00:00:05.860 align:middle line:84% Forgive me for a voice that age has somewhat impaired. 00:00:05.860 --> 00:00:09.720 align:middle line:90% 00:00:09.720 --> 00:00:12.440 align:middle line:84% I wish someone else were reading. 00:00:12.440 --> 00:00:14.640 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHING] 00:00:14.640 --> 00:00:15.820 align:middle line:90% Never mind. 00:00:15.820 --> 00:00:20.720 align:middle line:90% 00:00:20.720 --> 00:00:24.840 align:middle line:84% I had the chance the other day to visit a terrific art 00:00:24.840 --> 00:00:30.200 align:middle line:84% exhibition at the University of Arizona's fascinating laboratory 00:00:30.200 --> 00:00:33.480 align:middle line:90% of tree-ring research. 00:00:33.480 --> 00:00:36.480 align:middle line:84% And what a building that is gorgeous. 00:00:36.480 --> 00:00:39.640 align:middle line:90% Like a trunk-- shining trunk. 00:00:39.640 --> 00:00:42.240 align:middle line:84% The scientists there studying Earth's history 00:00:42.240 --> 00:00:48.640 align:middle line:84% that's carried, as in the expanding rings of old trees. 00:00:48.640 --> 00:00:53.720 align:middle line:84% And I think of it because in this poem, in a similar way, 00:00:53.720 --> 00:00:57.160 align:middle line:90% it is trees who carry time. 00:00:57.160 --> 00:00:59.940 align:middle line:90% This time our cultural memory. 00:00:59.940 --> 00:01:06.900 align:middle line:84% There are now what's estimated to be 100 million migrant people 00:01:06.900 --> 00:01:12.420 align:middle line:84% displaced by wars, famine, injustice, climate change. 00:01:12.420 --> 00:01:19.940 align:middle line:84% And what are we to make of such numbers without going numb? 00:01:19.940 --> 00:01:26.180 align:middle line:84% They need as witness something larger, older, more rooted. 00:01:26.180 --> 00:01:29.900 align:middle line:84% So in this poem, it is the trees who took over. 00:01:29.900 --> 00:01:35.460 align:middle line:84% The trees who speak, and who are slowly revealed as the willows 00:01:35.460 --> 00:01:38.660 align:middle line:90% from Psalm 137. 00:01:38.660 --> 00:01:43.100 align:middle line:84% I'll quote a few lines to set the poem in the Psalm 00:01:43.100 --> 00:01:49.300 align:middle line:84% that speaks so eloquently of the recurrent experience of exile, 00:01:49.300 --> 00:01:55.380 align:middle line:84% and which has recently gathered fresh tragedy roads. 00:01:55.380 --> 00:01:57.520 align:middle line:90% "By the rivers of Babylon. 00:01:57.520 --> 00:02:03.280 align:middle line:84% There we sat down, we wept when we remembered home. 00:02:03.280 --> 00:02:08.320 align:middle line:84% We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. 00:02:08.320 --> 00:02:14.000 align:middle line:84% For there they that carried us away captive, required of us 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:15.120 align:middle line:90% a song. 00:02:15.120 --> 00:02:20.180 align:middle line:84% And that wasted us, required of us mirth. 00:02:20.180 --> 00:02:23.680 align:middle line:90% 00:02:23.680 --> 00:02:27.280 align:middle line:90% For the willows to bless. 00:02:27.280 --> 00:02:30.380 align:middle line:84% With a shower of leaves red in the dawn, 00:02:30.380 --> 00:02:32.180 align:middle line:90% the stream by our side. 00:02:32.180 --> 00:02:36.920 align:middle line:84% River flow idling a little back spill the shrill cry of a bird. 00:02:36.920 --> 00:02:40.400 align:middle line:84% And little by little, as the light grew, 00:02:40.400 --> 00:02:42.840 align:middle line:90% the sun crested the hills. 00:02:42.840 --> 00:02:47.280 align:middle line:84% And as it splintered its gold among our leaves 00:02:47.280 --> 00:02:50.560 align:middle line:90% a two legged figure appeared. 00:02:50.560 --> 00:02:52.960 align:middle line:90% And behind it another. 00:02:52.960 --> 00:02:57.000 align:middle line:84% Another, as if the horizon itself 00:02:57.000 --> 00:03:02.190 align:middle line:84% was an opening seam from which they were pouring. 00:03:02.190 --> 00:03:06.550 align:middle line:84% A column stretching back and back over the hills 00:03:06.550 --> 00:03:09.950 align:middle line:90% that the sun had just mounted. 00:03:09.950 --> 00:03:12.830 align:middle line:90% They were backlit by that sun. 00:03:12.830 --> 00:03:18.050 align:middle line:84% Flat silhouettes and it was hard to discern one from another, 00:03:18.050 --> 00:03:20.230 align:middle line:90% so alike they appeared. 00:03:20.230 --> 00:03:24.750 align:middle line:90% And so endless their procession. 00:03:24.750 --> 00:03:27.670 align:middle line:84% And as they approached us we tensed, 00:03:27.670 --> 00:03:33.030 align:middle line:84% feeling something between apprehension and wonder. 00:03:33.030 --> 00:03:39.270 align:middle line:84% So much like an army of ants, they seemed so many, so many. 00:03:39.270 --> 00:03:45.230 align:middle line:84% As they came closer, we heard a great keening so that unsure 00:03:45.230 --> 00:03:46.950 align:middle line:90% how to greet them. 00:03:46.950 --> 00:03:51.030 align:middle line:84% Aware they brought with them a great grief, 00:03:51.030 --> 00:03:54.750 align:middle line:90% we offered them what we could. 00:03:54.750 --> 00:03:58.690 align:middle line:84% Shade, a cool shelter from the heat that 00:03:58.690 --> 00:04:01.090 align:middle line:90% had begun to follow the sun. 00:04:01.090 --> 00:04:05.690 align:middle line:84% A soft bed of needles from the pine to sleep on. 00:04:05.690 --> 00:04:10.810 align:middle line:84% And as we caught and played the breeze in our leaves, 00:04:10.810 --> 00:04:12.770 align:middle line:90% we sang to them. 00:04:12.770 --> 00:04:17.930 align:middle line:84% Our thoughts moving in the slipstream of time's passage. 00:04:17.930 --> 00:04:21.850 align:middle line:84% Wind in the harps hung in our branches. 00:04:21.850 --> 00:04:27.330 align:middle line:84% Left there in despair by others so like them. 00:04:27.330 --> 00:04:34.650 align:middle line:84% Years ago, slow circles of years we can barely remember. 00:04:34.650 --> 00:04:40.890 align:middle line:84% Still the song of the wind in the harp strings 00:04:40.890 --> 00:04:45.570 align:middle line:84% has mingled and merged with our tendrils of thought. 00:04:45.570 --> 00:04:49.210 align:middle line:90% A singing we offer them now. 00:04:49.210 --> 00:04:52.170 align:middle line:90% This sorrowing multitude. 00:04:52.170 --> 00:04:59.040 align:middle line:84% Who in return bring their tears to water our roots.