I'll just read the poems and make an occasional comment.
I just learned that you're not allowed to smoke when you read.
So that's going to make it more difficult for me.
But I'll just pause a little bit between each poem.
I'll read first from the first book, Early Rain.
"The cougar has been shot.
Something of the mountains, something that wrinkled,
muscle of sunlight in the trees, crept like a slope,
at evening, to a stream, washed its paws,
sticky with sunset, death, something of the mountains.
The cougar has been shot.
Good, the weekend hunters say.
When night hunched, anonymous, snarling in the leaves,
who could divide those eyes from stars that trailed us,
branch to branch, overhead?
And, once, I heard the gullies raging, underbrush,
grow furious.
Roots rock the air, rise up to join the giant mating.
Brought to life by their guns, the weekend hunters
worry such mountain-breaking, making passion in a living
thing, is dangerous."