Hello, everyone.
Thank you for coming out this afternoon.
Can you hear me?
I'll begin with a poem of invitation.
Last fall at the Montana festival
of the book I was scheduled as poets
often are at these events, to read early
in the morning in a basement room.
I surveyed the turnout kind of disappointed
until at the very last minute a high school teacher
appeared with her entire class to fill up the room.
So this poems for them reading poems to high school
students in Missoula.
You live next to the cold chilly waters of surprise.
Mountains and rivers encircle you.
The aspens multiply at your feet.
And the old Salish man I sat next to at dinner
his white hair resembling first snow on the mountains
spoke of youth.
Trout flash at the bottom of the river.
Mutant glorious in the cool and secret ledges of water.
Like a fly tossed from the end of a fishing line might
I lure you with my words into the boat of poetry.