Just as a change of pace, I sometimes
read this as a keynote poem.
And it's been on the page that some of you have seen.
I wasn't going to read it but just as enlightening for us
I'm going to read a little poem.
A very simple piece of verse.
I once got a fellowship from the government
to travel around the country.
And in doing so, I had the unusual opportunity
to use an unusual number of public facilities.
And when I went into them or used them,
I noticed of course all the obscenities.
Which were all around me.
But I also noticed the extraordinary number of hearts
with the names of lovers or the initials of lovers
and loved ones inside them.
And I thought, how curious the human creature that
in such circumstances can think of love or she I should say.
And so I wrote this little verse called Open Letter
From A Constant Reader.
To all who curve their love on a picnic table or scratch it on
smoked glass panes of a public toilet.
I send my thanks for each plain and perfect fable.
Of how the three panes of the body surface hunger and chill
or loneliness.
Create a furniture and art of their own evening.
And I blessed two public sites.
And like Yates, two private sites where
the body receives its blessing.
Nothing as banel or lowly that tells us
how well the world, whose highways proper table
and toilet as signs and occasions of comfort
for belly and bowel, can comfort the heart to somewhere
in secret.
Where so much constant news of good has been put.
Well fleeting and lasting lines compel believe.
Not by talent or riches, or beauty,
but by the world's grace.
People found relief from the worst pain
of the body, loneliness.
And say so, with a simple heart as they sit.
Being relieved of one of the others.
I bless our knowledge of love, always a publishing it.