I'm going to end with this poem called, "Promise."
Actually it's a song, I have a five member band
called Poetic Justice.
We play this one, but they're not here with me.
It's called, "Promise," and it's really nice to be here,
I don't have to explain the monsoon
storms, or the Catalinas, or the Rincons.
But I wrote this poem, I started on it
before when my daughter was in labor.
And because of this whole process that took three or four
days to go through, I finished the poem,
I had all this time to work on this, to be with her,
and then I was working on this poem.
So this is called, "Promise."
"The guardians of dusk blow fire from the rincones as clouds
confer over the Catalinas in the fading tracks of humans.
I interpret the blur of red as female rain tomorrow,
or the child born with the blessings of animals
who will always protect her.
I am always amazed at the skill of rain clouds
who outline the weave of human density.
Crickets memorize the chance event with rain songs
they have practiced for centuries.
I am recreated by that language.
Their predictions are always true, and as beautiful
as a swirl of flowers drinking rain.
I see the moon as I have never seen the moon, a half shell,
just large enough for a cradle board,
and the child who takes part in the dance of evolution,
as seen in the procession of tadpoles,
to humans painting the walls with wishes.
From the moon we all look the same.
In two days the girl will be born
and nothing will ever look the same.
I knew the monsoon clouds were talking about it as they
softened the speed of light.
Cedar smoke in a prayer house constructed in the last century
pervades my memory.
Prayer lingers in the ancestral chain.
You can manipulate words to turn departure into aperture,
but you cannot figure the velocity of love,
and how it enters every equation.
It's related to the calculation of the speed of light,
and how light prevails.
And then the evening star nods her head.
Nearby, a lone jet ascending.
I understand how light prevails.
And when she was born it rained.
Everything came true the way it was promised."
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]