Thank you, Gail.
You always sort of find out things
you never knew when there are beautiful words like that.
I mean, I'm so scared of googling my own name, right?
I hear what you said.
Thank you very much for all of you for coming after I was here
already last night.
And it's just--
Move this down a little bit, Fanny.
I thought I would start because I noticed
which books you have here.
And I'll read mostly out of those,
starting with The Lyrics, which was published in 2003
and was written probably for five years before then.
And I was in Ireland a lot of that time,
which is where our mother was born and grew up.
And so there's a kind of Irishness to these poems.
And I'll read those.
And then I'll read a new thing.
And then some poems from Come and See.
So the first one here is "40 Days."
"It's the summer solstice.
The day the darkening begins.
If I keep walking west, I can precede this time again
in a year.
Not much stamina.
Foot shoes sore.
Passing war after war, between ad nauseum errors,
unsure of which was after and which is before.
If I can just keep walking, it will not be now but next.
If I can stay with the gravity that troubles the sea,
you'll see.
I will come to that day.
Now I can taste its goodness without me.
After the solstice has passed, the day's contract new green
greys and I'm off again.
To those I would die for, please be patient.
It's summer somewhere.
I hear good things.
The ferry holds fast to the sound it makes.
A rumble of whistle, half half-white raindrops racing
and at war.
Glass that bristles and wrinkles at the sail.
Children finger the window and blow each one, all
one's, already away.
When I walk by myself, I often hit a river with no water
in it.
Black lyric undertow to pre-ordained ethics.
A template and a mirror of unmined silver.
They are some gems tear at their colors all night.
Particles of petrified spirit live inside this matter.
Peter's and Paul's known only to God.
Double the beautiful because they're so little.
A potato field whitens in the sun,
and someone rushes in passing roses, fuchsia, and orange
for petals flowers.
The sky is a piece of the painting
placed on a wall outside.
Into your arms, she runs, lost one,
whenever she hears you crying.
Veer uninvited, veer towards the winding river, low bridge,
and parchment sky.
Uninvited veer back the way you came here
to follow the unholstered highway."