"I love you into Pluto.
I've been waiting all day for this moment,
to be alone with you.
Alone, meaning reflection, as you stop to look.
My pulse unblemished by looking, the bones
of this arc of understanding, when
I stop to look at you in a way to make breathing possible.
You are my breath.
And when you walk, you meaning and understanding
that the body is of your making, I
see with other senses uncompromised
by physical limitations--
a pause of physical nature of friends,
a pause of the cycling of the mind and below the mind.
As we descend, I see a figure stream into the room.
Intentionality to walk into a dark room
with only the lightness of your body, which you could not see
but which everyone else could see.
Dark pitch and snow falling thick and fast
could not bear into the face of, not able
to contain such a gaze.
Come back to me ostensibly as returned liquid light.
I want the letter to be more flowery,
he said, the love letter to yourself.
In a dark room, you mentioned you,
under slayer of dark, remnants of dark,
of the letters and numbers printed on bombs dropping
on Iraq at this moment.
The newspapers, which I stroll past in my stroller,
strolled boys, oblivious to the children,
faces buried in rubble.
Would I shield them?
Gladly.
Inside, the mother father garden.
When I walk past those images, frayed
by the visual recognition of destruction-- gladly.
I've been waiting to turn to you,
meaning to look at the images gladly.
Last, unblemished by looking directly at you as I am of you.
Of the rubble in the photograph of the child lost
in contentment, I hold, locked eyes
with the image of destitution.
I am of you, and I choose you, the child buried in rubble.
I choose to walk into the dark room with luminosity, a parent,
where we may walk together.
You, phosphorescent, along the edges of your sky.
Chest expands along the edges of my small understanding.
Grand apprehension, apprehend apprenticeship,
pretend ship aboard not vessel but voyage,
preternatural of nerves and muscles,
clavicle turn of needing one's hands for small tasks.
An intimate animal, elusive, wholly
imaginary to accompany us through
this dwindling corridor.
I love you into Pluto, beyond the spot.
Sit on my lap and eat a sandwich, drinking sideways
from the corner of your mouth, having a cup of juice with you.
Or you are luminous, and I am sleeping as you arrive,
tiredly pulling over the bed to your side,
beckoning bodily beyond Pluto.
I love you into the Milky Way.
This could be a children's book, he
said, which begins, I love you into the clouds,
then the moon, then the other planets,
and onwards, outwards, to infinity.
Just always to be with you, even on the potty, mommy.
From where did it come, this luminous body?
Jakey, lay down, it's sleepy time.
How is it that meditation changes reality so that
returning to a task, to a thought,
you touch everything differently?
We were made of trees, and we shook madly.
The neighbor moves out of the neighborhood.
I have a history of inexplicable love for you.
How to entertain the illogical?
Is it logical to look at a forest and see a parking lot?
Is it logical in the midst of hurried tasks
to stop, to sit, to pray, to offer help, to light candles?
An act is merely an act if only acted.
I have a history of love for you that
is not my history exclusively.
You are loved beyond anything known.
There is no you in the sentence that approaches aptly.
There is only the sentence where it attempts to carry thought,
missing along the way at every catch of breath.
But the you in the sentence is the multi-present you,
the you drinking or sitting, the you sleeping,
the you in the newspapers, the you idiotic,
yelling, the you stomping away, the you
lifting boxes in the garage, searching for something
at my request, the you planting seeds,
scrubbing floors, the you distant, invisible, ever
present, the you ringing the telephone far too often,
the you crying, walking into walls,
the you irritated at that time of night,
the you searching for remedies, the you
allergic to wheat and the you allergic to cats
and the you preferring an aisle seat, the you not helping,
but running, the you leaving drawers open and dishes dirty,
the you walking across the kitchen counter,
the you missing or deliberately absent, the you of no image,
the you of divine image, the you you disagree with,
the you in any one continuous sentence, the you in debt,
the you in versed, reading something trivial,
repeating untrue words, the you listening, the you into all
of the planets.
We are animals, standing very still until someone presses
our buttons.
Then we walk or run.
Then we are still again.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]