This is the title poem of this book.
I realized when I was reading last night in Flagstaff
that most of these poems do have some oblique, geographical
reference.
I wrote this while I was living in Vermont.
The title is In Winter and the first line is, "At 4 o'clock,
it's dark," and I realize, it probably--
it doesn't get dark in Flagstaff until 10:00 or 11:00 at night.
In Winter.
It's a love poem.
"At 4 o'clock, it's dark.
Today, looking out through dusk at three gray women
in stretch slacks, chatting in front of the post
office, their steps--
left, and right, and back, like some quick folk
dance of kindness.
I remembered the winter we spent crying in each other's laps.
What could you be thinking at this moment?
How lovely and strange the gangly spines of trees
against the thickening sky, as you
drive from the library, humming off-key,
or are you smiling at an idea met in a book,
the way you smiled with your whole body
the first night we talked?
I was so sure my love of you was perfect,
and the light today reminded me of the winter you drove home
each day in the dark at 4 o'clock,
and would come into my study to kiss me despite mistake
after mistake after mistake."
[APPLAUSE]
It's really better-- it's really better
if you don't do that, because as my friend, Louise Glück says,
if after a certain poem, you do not clap,
then she wonders what you're doing-- what she's doing wrong.
Just save it all for the end, and then carry me out
of the auditorium.
[LAUGHTER]