Last night, after dinner, Alison was driving me around,
and I was pointing out some of the locations of pain, grief,
and longing which Tucson represents to me.
[LAUGHTER]
Many of which are now demolished, great loss.
And we're talking about places that aren't here anymore.
And I said, well, one place I remember so vividly,
that I'm sure can no longer exist,
is the Valley of the Moon.
Now, you know what the Valley of the Moon is?
A lot of you know what the Valley of the Moon is.
I don't know how to explain what it is.
It's a sort of work of eccentric art that was built by this man
in the '20s and '30s.
He made a kind of grottos assemblage out
of cement and broken china and pieces
of metal and all this stuff.
And he began to give tours of it.
It was a sort of fairyland park.
And he had trained bunnies that performed at the Bunnyland
Theater.
I first encountered this place when I was 16.
I was a volunteer in Head Start.
And we took the kids on a field trip to the Valley of the Moon.
It was extraordinary.
I've never forgotten it.
And I was sure that this was long since gone.
So Alison and I stopped at Circle K, looked in the phone
book and, sure enough, the Valley of the Moon
is in the phone book.
We drove to the Valley of the Moon, and it was open.
The old man is long since dead, but a group of people
have gotten together and preserved it
and are running tours.
They're open now for Halloween.
Alison and I were sitting talking
about-- we were having this conversation as soon as we
walked in about loss and loneliness.
And this figure strode up to us and said, "Mortal pilgrims,
I am Puss in Boots," and took us on a tour.
Amazing.
So I figured this meant that God wanted me to read this poem,
which is called "The Garden of the Moon."
It's an older poem.
"The Garden of the Moon."
"The school bus rattled around more turns in the desert road
than I'd ever be able to trace again,
the summer I worked in Head Start
and the lead teacher arranged a field trip from the barrio
to the Valley of the Moon.
We parked at a high, ramshackle fence straddling a swatch
of creosote and mesquite.
There was nothing to the old man swinging
open the gate but shape, black clothes, black beekeeper's hat.
And as his glove smoothed the veil,
he welcomed us in a sort of stage whisper to the Valley
of the Moon, 'built with the love and spiritual assistance
of many.'
And he led us in.
The children walked with partners, the teacher watching
for stragglers or hazard.
I was assigned to Antonio, the boy she mistrusted most.
The path climbed to shoulder-high Alps of cement
encrusted with broken crockery and bits of glass,
junk mosaics capped with figures.
A chipped chalkware Snow White gathered her glittered skirt,
looking forward eagerly from her high-collared cape
as if everything were about to be delivered to her.
At the mouth of a little cave, the children
were instructed to dig for treasure.
They kicked till they found pennies in the sand,
and the teacher asked if they were meant to keep them.
The old man told us to speak softly, if at all,
because we were coming to a place of great serenity.
And he led us down a curving stair
into a two-story grotto he'd hollowed out of earth.
Weathered concrete seats ringed a washtub pool.
A myna bird whispered in a metal cage.
'Whenever you are troubled,' the old man said,
'send your thoughts here.'
The bird spoke a few phrases for us.
Even Antonio concentrated on its black sheen,
the old man's gestures.
Water dripped along one wall, and I
noticed how small his battered black shoes
were on the ground he'd made himself.
Everywhere around the rim of this one
were other unfinished gardens, a world
of things he might use to build them.
'Your astral body can travel to the Garden of the Moon.'
Later, in a leaning circus tent filled
with empty cages and Victorian photographs of fairies,
he performed a little lame magic,
which the children liked best, along with the pennies.
Bouquets pulled from sleeves, a dove from a jiggling hat.
The air would never lift the veil enough to show his face.
At the gate, he'd hand us each a business card,
stitched with a scarlet sequin, printed with the motto,
"The Key to the Fairy Treasure House, Up,
Up in the Valley of the Moon.'
And we'd file onto the bus where the driver waited,
reading a magazine, and flash our brilliant souvenirs
in the windows all the way home.
But in the magic tent, when a real snake emerged from
a basket, and a winged glimmer slid down a wire and landed
in a bloom of smoke and sparks, Antonio forgot himself enough
to hold my hand, and lean forward like the statuette
of Snow White, with that same breathless look."
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.