First of all, I'd like to find out if my voice is coming over
at this level.
Could you hold your hand up, Keith?
It's OK.
OK.
Now I'd like to start my reading the way I start all my readings
and that is to read a poem not by me, but by Lionel Kearns who
I think is the best poet in Canada
and who has been peculiarly connected
with me poetry wise for the last five years or so.
And I thought it might make a good introduction too
because Lionel lived for quite a while in Mexico
and this poem has to do with his leaving Mexico.
Is this thing making a humming noise?
Can I correct that by turning the volume down just a little?
You can still hear me, I hope.
OK.
This is Lionel Kearns' poem then called "Situation".
Coffee beans in the morning sun, a giant hog asleep
between the trays.
And once Alfonso climbed the hill and talked and stayed.
And in the afternoon, we sat in the finca sipping cocoa nuts
and rum with faint huapango rhythms drifting up
from some marimba band down in the village.
Music on the wind, that was enough.
Small talk at the stall of Mama Lupita.
Funny stories over at the cantina.
A ride to KaTomoko reflections on the lake.
And because it was Sunday night, the big band
had already set up in the platform and everybody
was there jumping up to mambos and Cha Cha Cha.
The trumpets bouncing off the cathedral
wall crackling into the night.
It was part of the good life.
Friends and their families, all you
could eat and drink every day.
And there was love in that town too,
but that was largely a matter of brothers and guns
of dying young among fists and curling lips.