And I'm going to end with--
the last section of the book is called Yennecott.
And it's an old name for this part
of Long Island out in the North Fork, of the very North Fork.
And no one really knows what it means.
I tried to find it everywhere.
So I like the sound of it.
And it comes through in the nine sections of this poem.
And I'll just read a few stanzas in it.
And here's how it opens, with a little epigraph
by Khlebnikov the Russian poet.
"Me, Earth dweller, with the wave of one
foot breaking after another.
Off the main road, through a tangled path of green,
to a row of cabins where brick workers once lived,
transplanted along the shore.
Cherubim and a flaming sword it was written.
From then, exile and mortality.
At the entrance to breezy shores,
a thin chain stretched between posts that hide a motor.
At the landlocked, to be suddenly surrounded by sea,
sun summoning past beyond forgetting.
The cabin feels like an island.
Windows unfold to ceiling, floor uneven, sand collection tower,
jar of shells, afferent breeze.
In winter, they shut off the water,
this place a private seasonal getaway, sea still sea.
Nine-day holiday time shared between us-- new grandmother,
mother, father, grandson, son.
Out the screen door to flowers, fresh cut grass, a low umbrella
table, two Adirondack chairs, between bushes
step down to a thin stretch of sand.
High tide hides, leaves behind stones, shells, sea.
Matthew and Peter, we've never met.
Among their things, toolbox doorstop, checkered couch,
apricot scrap, boxes and boxes of Irish Spring--
[LAUGHTER]
--which are all empty.
Tristan and Isolde's night gaze.
Tall, orange vase emptiness, bags and bags of frozen
vegetables, mosaic candle volcano, Kandinsky curtains,
of paintings, Valéry: The landscape afforded great
conveniences.
Lonely sail, snug straw hat, Hungary for Men
scrawled on a videotape.
A. in the period of likenesses, Gennady five months dead.
But the birches of Yennecott recall his word spirits.
Creeley's "Mazatlán" comes to mind,
Reznikoff Sei Shōnagon across the centuries.
I nod away from my intentions.
Bark walls, bullrush mats, and the living place, open sky.
The sea we're looking at always inspires nostalgia
for what we'll never see, says Pessoa's maiden
in a round castle room, with a corpse, and a window,
and two others listening.
Sleep surrounded by sea, darkness rocking
sleep, beside her in safety.
Dream, the grain of memory.
Mythless dream, the shared impossible dream.
Dreamless myth, impossible.
Tree without seed, fruit without flower.
Urubamba flow below Vilcapampa.
City of stairways in the clouds.
The way Castillo's quill trembled before the undreamed
that was already dreamed.
Ancient memory, Gandharva realm--
keyed, stone carved, angled, Vicuña rug, their love for sun,
terrace, tillage, harmony of water, lightness,
tied to intihuatana mirror and bronze.
Sun's reflection echo at Tiahuanaco, ruins Mayta Capac
studied, Pachacutec carved, curved walls, ashlar room,
window heights.
Milder than Cusco, hidden by mountains, mist, home, temple.
Hidden from conquest, when the merciful conquerors became
the conquered and the place abandoned imagination.
Ashore, fished the Sound, standing in water.
Mosquitoes suck through my shirt, crab after crab hooked.
Moon, a haze of clouds in the face of hunger.
Malick's New World, history cannot hold its fragrance
of love, the land.
Even in extremity, hardship-- they belong to communion.
Their voices, memory of the forest, of the air,
of the weeping birds, of the river's stillness."
And this is the last section of the book.
It's in nine little parts.
And there's a word here, Mesingw he's
the Lenni Lenape god of the forest and of animals and kind
of presides over this section of the poem.
And so he comes up.
"Alone in the woods near a running brook,
far from wind, shelter built, pyramid of bark, leaves,
saplings-- provisions set for the known hour.
Light deepening late spring's colors,
his eyes felt but hidden.
Silence of birds and trees, silence of breath.
Waves of pain beginning.
Silence of walking feet.
Silence of song cradling belly, her voice so sweet.
Sap rise, soft bed of moss, butterfly and dragonfly,
wild flowers all would drink.
Sun fading, falling through branches.
Pain still pain without sin.
panis angelius fit panis hominum As it was,
as it was at the sacred table.
Breath returning through the door of horn,
vanishes on swift wings through the ivory door.
Circle of fire, embers floating to stars, divine spark inside,
breathing, breathing, and coming.
Mesingw is coming.
I am here.
Beaver had appeared, then Otter, Muskrat, Toad,
and a lonely lotus.
Turtle's slow search, Earth rocked tectonic web,
spiders net.
Mesingw astride deer, face red, black mask.
Eponym of peace, of silence, steps, breath,
making the forest, opening the path.
Thoughts born of words--
you are not myself, nor any other.
We are thoughts.
Surrounded by water and darkness, immersed
in the sound of her heart, if this is blindness,
what is sight?
before memory.
They walk toward me from a great distance,
and clothed me in garments of sun.
Faces so familiar from a city of bridges, city of stone,
city of ring roads, waterway fields, now
dust motes in a sunbeam.
They rub my back and my feet, whispered sweet words to me,
brought me food and drink.
So thirsty, I stood alone as they danced around me,
knowledge and acknowledged.
Salt flowing down my body--
a vessel my blood, my water, mixing with Earth.
Horus not of silence or sun, but of the child,
the cries in my arms.
Stepped into water to wash.
By dawn's first light, I carried her.
She carried my heart, unsequestered
forest, Mesingw's breath.
Everything living emotion.
Motion and stillness, water clear as the air was clear,
the Earth, my thoughts, hers.
And for many days of water silence, naps, and dreams.
Her milk feeding my heart.
Her voice-- gentle wind.
Her face-- blossoming sky.
I returned to the village of nine houses without a name,
uprooted, not yet born, calling me, calling me,
tears of a father."
And this is a very last poem of the book.
"Walked the shore of shells, walked
the dock, the glass peninsula, the broken pier.
Walked the macadam to grassy field.
Walked the path through the trees towering to sand.
Walked the morning dove's nest in shade and leaves.
Walked the templum of elfin gold,
of orpiment crystals tempered with wine.
Walked the brick house and outhouse.
Walked the water back to where I began, though I could see
no semblance of a beginning.
And what the walk revealed along the sea's margin,
along the rim rock of the island,
after so many centuries, of marsh tides and moon stones,
of or and ore before oar was an experience of walking.
Irony replaced with nothingness.
Immensity and transience, the unsaid thoughts
flowing around my heart.
And the rays, like a shepherd's fire,
shadowing the vanishing line."
Thanks.
[APPLAUSE]