WEBVTT

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Sarah will read first.

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This first poem
is the title poem

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from Steve's first collection,
"Permission to Speak"

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"Mornings from my
upstairs window,

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I can see a gray stand
of birch, and further

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down a hickory
grove, then the river

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that powers the mill
that grinds flour.

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Later, I'll eat the bread.

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Last night, a spring snow
blurred the countryside.

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And for a while, I lost my way.

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I thought I saw a boy in a
crimson bathing suit whirl

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downstream on an inner tube.

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So I closed my eyes
on the old words

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for birch and hickory and snow.

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Like a novice in his
cell discovering light,

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not the one, but another
about which he'll remain

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silent all his life.

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I came to myself at the window.

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That boy, already
seen in memory,

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gives me permission to speak.

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After a spring snow, a father
and son took a sleigh ride

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along the riverbank.

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And what the son couldn't see,
the particular hills and trees

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lost to whiteness, made him cry.

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The father snapped
the reins and pointed

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at what must have been a red
fox sliding past a birch.

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Look at that fellow in the
bright nightgown, from which

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the son will date his love of
the world traveling swiftly

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past."

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