WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.520 align:middle line:84% This last poem is an ode to all my Pacific poets 00:00:04.520 --> 00:00:06.560 align:middle line:90% who've been reading tonight. 00:00:06.560 --> 00:00:08.680 align:middle line:90% It's called Pearl. 00:00:08.680 --> 00:00:10.520 align:middle line:84% And it's a meditation on inheritance, 00:00:10.520 --> 00:00:15.240 align:middle line:84% and also the violence of the Pacific occupation. 00:00:15.240 --> 00:00:17.600 align:middle line:90% Pearl. 00:00:17.600 --> 00:00:23.840 align:middle line:84% The raw pearl your mother gave to you that you gave away. 00:00:23.840 --> 00:00:26.680 align:middle line:84% You carry it sometimes in your dreams. 00:00:26.680 --> 00:00:30.960 align:middle line:84% It's memory swelling like a blister forged 00:00:30.960 --> 00:00:32.920 align:middle line:90% from the blood of the Pacific. 00:00:32.920 --> 00:00:36.840 align:middle line:84% Little grain, little ache on the tongue. 00:00:36.840 --> 00:00:40.560 align:middle line:84% If held in the mouth, it would be smooth. 00:00:40.560 --> 00:00:43.440 align:middle line:90% Semen colored, embryonic. 00:00:43.440 --> 00:00:47.160 align:middle line:84% If swallowed, it would slide down to the belly 00:00:47.160 --> 00:00:48.880 align:middle line:90% and take root there. 00:00:48.880 --> 00:00:50.600 align:middle line:90% The way you did once. 00:00:50.600 --> 00:00:52.920 align:middle line:84% Niggling child listing in amnion, 00:00:52.920 --> 00:00:56.680 align:middle line:84% lumped silica smoothed to a sheen. 00:00:56.680 --> 00:00:59.220 align:middle line:84% If you were to hold the mollusk in your hand, 00:00:59.220 --> 00:01:01.580 align:middle line:84% place a knife at the base of the hinge. 00:01:01.580 --> 00:01:04.640 align:middle line:84% In this way, the shell- misshapen pearl 00:01:04.640 --> 00:01:07.620 align:middle line:84% can be pried open, separated from the meat there. 00:01:07.620 --> 00:01:13.540 align:middle line:84% There's a taste of salty mucus, of rusted nails. 00:01:13.540 --> 00:01:17.700 align:middle line:84% Can you detect the fecal bloom of the oyster beds. 00:01:17.700 --> 00:01:20.800 align:middle line:84% The pearl of shit building in the lower tracks. 00:01:20.800 --> 00:01:23.940 align:middle line:84% Blushing microbiome of the tides. 00:01:23.940 --> 00:01:27.740 align:middle line:84% Can you taste the life draining from the animal. 00:01:27.740 --> 00:01:31.140 align:middle line:84% The waters that flowed through what was sifted 00:01:31.140 --> 00:01:32.820 align:middle line:90% and what remained. 00:01:32.820 --> 00:01:35.820 align:middle line:84% What chipped at the shell to release its tumorous 00:01:35.820 --> 00:01:37.860 align:middle line:90% iridescence. 00:01:37.860 --> 00:01:41.420 align:middle line:84% Can you siphon the past into gems. 00:01:41.420 --> 00:01:44.080 align:middle line:84% All the residues draining from sewers. 00:01:44.080 --> 00:01:46.580 align:middle line:84% Dead leviathans clustered with hag fish. 00:01:46.580 --> 00:01:49.340 align:middle line:84% Bodies of fishermen and sailors, their mothers' grief 00:01:49.340 --> 00:01:52.180 align:middle line:90% engulfed by the sea. 00:01:52.180 --> 00:01:57.020 align:middle line:84% Your own mother returned decades too late to hand you this pearl. 00:01:57.020 --> 00:02:00.620 align:middle line:84% Uneven thing with its own kind of potential. 00:02:00.620 --> 00:02:04.500 align:middle line:84% Her island crusted layer by layer from the sea magma 00:02:04.500 --> 00:02:10.660 align:middle line:84% made igneous, string of pearls draped along the Mariana Trench. 00:02:10.660 --> 00:02:13.380 align:middle line:84% Could she look east as a child, and see a fire 00:02:13.380 --> 00:02:16.820 align:middle line:84% in the nacreous skies over Bikini Atoll? 00:02:16.820 --> 00:02:19.830 align:middle line:90% Does she think of a pearl? 00:02:19.830 --> 00:02:22.830 align:middle line:84% On whose sons did the fallout rain? 00:02:22.830 --> 00:02:28.270 align:middle line:84% Whose daughters, pearls growing deep in their bodies? 00:02:28.270 --> 00:02:31.590 align:middle line:84% You think of the daughters never born to you. 00:02:31.590 --> 00:02:36.190 align:middle line:84% Who will never receive this small and significant 00:02:36.190 --> 00:02:37.870 align:middle line:90% inheritance. 00:02:37.870 --> 00:02:41.390 align:middle line:84% A rough pearl in a plastic envelope from a highway gift 00:02:41.390 --> 00:02:44.590 align:middle line:90% shop in Hawaii. 00:02:44.590 --> 00:02:47.650 align:middle line:84% If you were to break it open and magnify the shards, 00:02:47.650 --> 00:02:50.950 align:middle line:84% they would appear structured, highly brittle, mineral 00:02:50.950 --> 00:02:56.230 align:middle line:84% platelets stacked like long boxes in a darkened warehouse. 00:02:56.230 --> 00:03:00.290 align:middle line:84% Warehouse of forgotten lives of dead ancestors, 00:03:00.290 --> 00:03:03.350 align:middle line:90% lost mothers and children. 00:03:03.350 --> 00:03:06.910 align:middle line:84% Little speck, little star, disappearing 00:03:06.910 --> 00:03:09.550 align:middle line:90% into the folds of your hand. 00:03:09.550 --> 00:03:13.870 align:middle line:84% What does the light do as it arcs along the silken surface? 00:03:13.870 --> 00:03:18.230 align:middle line:84% What if all families are grains scattered in the sea? 00:03:18.230 --> 00:03:19.310 align:middle line:90% Si Yu'os ma'åse'. 00:03:19.310 --> 00:03:20.907 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:03:20.907 --> 00:03:24.246 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:03:24.246 --> 00:03:29.510 align:middle line:90% 00:03:29.510 --> 00:03:31.000 align:middle line:90% That was great.