Now, I want to go back to a poem.
This-- I have to locate myself.
I was teaching at San Jose State,
at the south-end of the San Francisco Bay.
This is called "The Star in the Hills."
"A star hit in the hills behind our house,
up where the grass turned brown touching the sky.
Meteors have hit the world before, but this was near.
And since TV, few saw, but many felt the shock.
The state of California owns that land, and out from shore
three miles.
And any stars that come will be roped off and viewed
on weekdays, 8:00 to 5:00.
[LAUGHTER]
A guard who took the oath of loyalty
and denied any police record told me this.
If you don't have a police record yet,
you could take the oath and get a job, if California
should be hit by another star.
[LAUGHTER]
I'd promise to be loyal to California
and to guard any stars that hit it,
I said, or any place three miles out from shore.
Unless the star was bigger than the state, in which case,
I'd be loyal to it.
[LAUGHTER]
But he said no exceptions were allowed.
[LAUGHTER]
And he leaned against the state-owned meteor so calm
and puffed a cork-tip cigarette that I looked down and traced
with my foot in the dust, thought again, and said,
'OK, any star.'"
[LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE]
I got letters about that one when it was published.
[LAUGHTER]
Translated into German by a man at the University
of California, Berkeley, and so on.