I'm going to end with a poem called "January: First Light."
I have a whole series of poems which have
"first light" in the title.
Being an insomniac, I get to see first light very often.
This poem-- I should say just a little thing
about the setting of the poem, which
is that near our house in Maine, there's an old narrow gauge
railroad which used to take people to work
from a part of south-central Maine
up to near Waterville, where I live,
and during World War II, because of the iron shortage,
they melted down the tracks from that railroad and all that's
left now is just a small hill from it.
January: First Light--
It's the path of the old railroad tracks just
before light.
No noise: the birds are not yet awake,
the barn owl drifting into sleep,
the iron scars have been melted down for a war
long fought and gone.
Then the evening edged out by the first band of light,
across the strips of trees.
I know I don't have long to go: the sleepless night
that brought me to the woods behind the house
is over now, and what fears I had I left behind me there.
Now I make out rapid tracks and behind them, something larger,
a dog perhaps, on its trail.
The trail leads nowhere and the rabbit's safe.
A world without predators: the parent's dream.
Why won't it pass?
Look: the starling's pulled that ribbon of worm,
the day's unraveling, we're moving on,
exhausted, ready to begin.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]