And the last group of poems are about time--
subject I think about a lot, getting older in the world--
and, I guess, problems of remembering and forgetting.
What should be remembered and what should be forgotten
and how do you keep certain things alive?
First one is called "The Dream of Fair Women."
Once, when they came to my bed in dream,
they came in the dark, nameless, bodies only.
Then they came in the light, faces visible.
Faces of women I could hope to encounter soon
if my luck changed, if I played my cards right,
docked on the right islands, my face bronze from the sea sun.
Now they come as a few women I've known well.
Is this a sign of the change I'm most afraid of?
The slow shifting of hope to memory?
They don't return as I remember them, but older,
as they might look now.
Their foreheads lined, dark hair crowded by gray.
One day their youth got up before dawn
and left them sleeping.
Then they woke up serious, not mournful,
and saw from their window that the mainland
they call their home was, in fact,
an island with a single harbor seldom used.
In the way station of my bed, their hands
gripping my shoulders, they tell their stories saved up,
voyage after voyage for years, like mine.
However I listened before, in my dream I listen carefully.
As I wake, the words fade, but the tone
lingers, which is all I need to know what words of mine
are true.
[APPLAUSE]