WEBVTT

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The last poem I'd
like to read is

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the title poem from
my new collection,

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"The Cap of Darkness."

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And it's dedicated
to Robinson Jeffers.

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I think one of the most
fortunate things about growing

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up in Southern California
was that, at least when

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I was in school, the high
school curriculum contained

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the work of Robinson
Jeffers, whom I think

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is one of the most important
20th century poets and one who

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was very much destroyed
by the critics,

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especially Yvor
Winters of his time.

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One whose philosophies are
still too advanced for I

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think for most people.

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So he becomes a kind
of muse or inspiration

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for all of us who
feel it in some way.

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We are talking to
deaf ears at times.

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"The Cap of Darkness"

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"He walks on the desert at
night, which is a cool place.

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Moisture condensing on
the succulent green bodies

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of saguaro and cholla.

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Alone, he should be aware of the
city street just a mile away,

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and the city beyond that street,
the violence of hot bodies.

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But he is dreaming of a place
where paradoxical landscapes

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come together.

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I repudiate the bad
voices of my times.

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And I repudiate the weak
voices whose own lyrics are

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better than their judgments.

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So I walk in the desert
wearing the cap of darkness,

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which I need only in the city.

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But like a reverse
hero, perhaps that

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is what a woman
is, a reverse hero,

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I walk naked and
unarmed in the city,

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putting on the protective
cap of darkness

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only when I am
alone in the desert.

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How else would I have any honor,
for I am fighting the unknown.

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The invisible.

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The ignorance of vision.

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I do not need the beautiful,
beautiful, silvery

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invisible helmet to meet the
Bostonian academic fashion

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mongers, who worship
fortune on the stock market

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or the names of old families.

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I do not need it
to fight fake zen

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masters, or arrogant Quakers,
or even the key holders

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to old university gates.

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No, my battle is with
the ghost themselves,

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who have positioned
the false singers

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in their ancestral houses and
given them position, money,

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and power.

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The ghost of greed
is a rational man

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with a good body, a sharp brain,
and a very comfortable life.

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He offers me a place in one
of these old brownstones,

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if I will accept
his other converts.

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But I will never
convert to ghost life,

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even though my battle
out here on the desert

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is with ghosts and
half form beings,

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wearing the cap of invisibility
which covers my silvery

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moon like hair without
anything but a book or a weapon

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and an orange for temptation.

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Birds, birds with gold wings.

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He walks in the desert at
night where silence is an ally.

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The city has muggers,
rapers, rapists,

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and murderers, who edit
periodicals, run contests,

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and serve themselves banquets.

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Peace, peace, I counsel.

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No battles are worth
the self-destruction.

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But on the desert
there is a kind father

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who must be repudiated, and a
sad mother who must be buried,

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a jealous sister who will
steal the silvery helmet,

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and an inadequate lover who
will unknowingly give power

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from his false use of moonlight
and his ignorance of the sun.

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Alone, alone.

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Not peace, but the battle with
fashion, conducted in a place

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where glittering
cities rise and fall

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with the breath of
a sleeping person.

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Who is that person?

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The sleeping one, whose
breath patterns so much.

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The man who walks on
the desert at night, so

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close to the city, not
knowing the city itself,

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but himself becoming
the blazing lights,

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the dark buildings with
scattered illuminated windows.

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And I standing there invisible,
even though the helmet of night

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now belongs to a thief,
knowing the truth.

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Seeing the city and
the desert as one,

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finally accepting the
sand as my carpet.

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The light as my hair,
the snakes as companions,

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living in a city of cactus,
which holds all the moisture

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needed for existence."

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