WEBVTT

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I know you're as thirsty
as I am and I'm sorry.

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It's a dry spell.

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I'm going to read
three journey poems.

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Because of the
nature of my method,

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I have absolutely no choice
over my subject matter.

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I simply have to take
what comes and go with it.

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I try to tap my subconscious
or some nearby realms,

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and whatever comes
up, I work with.

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So, very often, what comes
up is a journey poem.

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I don't know why exactly.

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I suppose that it's universal.

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I suppose that
man has always had

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the feeling if he could
go somewhere else,

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he could be someone else.

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And this is something we want.

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I suppose it's the
reason for much

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of the romance behind space
travel and that sort of thing.

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Very often, my work is cast
in the form of journey poem.

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We no longer believe in
the fountain of youth,

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but I think we still
look for it sometimes.

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I think it would be far away.

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The first of these poems
is for my son, Brad.

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It has absolutely
nothing to do with him

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it's just that he prefers
it to all my poetry,

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and I always dedicate it to him.

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I think the setting is
roughly an area in Kentucky,

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where the Ohio River meets
the Mississippi River,

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if you know that
area around Paducah.

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It's kind of swampy place.

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And I spent a summer
there once and I think

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that's kind of in this poem.

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This poem always seems
to me to be terribly wet.

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It's called "The Crossing.

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For Brad."

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"The journey is always return.

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What I cannot leave
behind, I take with me.

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My hands, like dry
vines torn from a wall.

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The memory of strangers,
the smell of wet sidewalks,

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worn into the soles of my shoes.

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Just after dawn, the
river exposes its wound,

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and I cross a bridge in love
with its own reflection.

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A few lights are still
on in houses downriver.

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A rowboat half sunk in the
mud is calling for help.

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Even from this
distance, I can tell

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the trees are crippled with age.

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I am full of other
places and tired,

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like birds who
return in the spring.

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I stumble through
jonquils the color

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of flesh, past holy places
where lovers and children have

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made nests in the matted grass.

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There are flying
flags in the city

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of flags, so many at half mast.

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So many in my honor.

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They keep up appearances.

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I enter the city through
a gate as old as smoke

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and have returned
to my own people.

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Those beside whom this
river passes always,

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will they forgive
me the distance?

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Those without eyes who count
days by fingering notches on

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sticks.

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Those who grow thin in silence,
who do not permit their clothes

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to touch their bodies.

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Who have only their
names to guide them.

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I walk among them.

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They bow two by two with
their arms around one another.

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The signs say, keep moving.

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The flowers are stone
faces covered with moss.

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I had no idea the
dead lived so well."

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