WEBVTT

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I can't tell you how weird
it feels to follow that

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by reading a poem.

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I feel like I've
been upstaged, but I

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am going to read one more,
which isn't entirely short,

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but hopefully not too long.

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And then, please,
take questions.

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And this is from the last
poem in the book Pushing

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Water, number 52.

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"A solo, a duet, a chorus,
a round of fiddles,

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a marching band,
a catbird singing.

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Imagine undone
business this morning

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by the sea, or Ludd's
Hill, or 72nd street,

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or at Mrs. Polk's
breakfast table.

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Speak of a spiral, or a
cup, or coins, and keys.

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Home from the Hill, he read,
with sharp eyes and lean frame.

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I too carry marbles in a pocket.

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I too have chewed from the bone.

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But here is other, rounded
hill and cherry blossom,

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feet crossing the
imagined circle.

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There's always color.

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It has yet to become light.

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A series of marks
joined together

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to form an object or work over
which our eyes may freely roam.

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Upon entering a room,
one sees everything

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and, at the same time, nothing.

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And they are the same
thing, purple in the grays,

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vermilion in the orange shadows.

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The care for the
syllables, the form

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beyond the phonemes, where
one moves as if inside.

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A sentence, as if part of
the grammatical structure,

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as if a step were a comma.

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A step is a comma.

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A stop is an invitation.

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A bruise is a mark of state.

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A crush is legislative action.

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We're at war with
our better selves.

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We are at war with our
more common selves.

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Why do we read with the
expectation of a subject?

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If they flee from
me, where do they go?

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If I seek to hold in
a net the wind or what

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is not to be touched,
what practice [? is ?]

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new-fangledness?

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And why not batter my heart?

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These are my beginnings.

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These and the stopping
train, where I first

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heard, wring out the
wants, the care, the sin,

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the faithless
coldness of the times.

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Ring out, ring out
my mournful rhymes,

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but ring the fuller minstrel in.

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And now the bell resounds
throughout my frame

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in a small room with others,
in a space of quiet sitting,

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in the room without walls,
in the flow of water,

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pushing without effort,
but only for moments.

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Then the enormous tragedy,
the bent shoulders,

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the impossible loss and
gain in the same enclosure,

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the impossible gather and
disperse, the necessity

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of contract and release.

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Cynthia is my Elizabeth,
says the ocean to the river.

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She is gone, she is lost,
she is found, is ever-fair,

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and she draws a home.

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And I draw a home, as
death's long night draws on

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and lights long day, pursues
the new and old wind."

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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