I want to read one now that I don't usually read, mostly
because it was unfinished.
You know how some poems are kind of like little place markers,
that you're going to go back, and like, there's a mine here--
dig around.
But anyway this is a poem I almost never read.
But I want to read it for you, share this for you,
maybe setting up this other poem.
This is a poem called "For Edward long"
And it comes out of--
when I was growing up, there was a man
who was very important to me.
I don't know if I could call him my grandmother's boyfriend,
but basically what he was a homeless drunk,
who was a very nice guy and extremely intelligent.
Just the wonderful-- most wonderful, kindest,
most interesting people you could ever imagine.
But that's what he was.
He was a drunk, and he was homeless.
They didn't call it that, then.
They sort of called it hobo or whatever.
But this character followed my grandmother home
and stayed for a number of years.
I don't know what his history was,
but I know that he had a PhD.
And I know that he studied physics.
And I know that he was very eccentric.
What I don't think I knew was that he had
a history of mental problems.
So my grandmother got very ill, when I was about 11 years old,
and went into the hospital.
And he sort of lost it, and was locked up,
and was never heard from again.
I think maybe the shame of being locked up
or something-- he never got a hold of us again.
Or I don't know what happened to him.
But he was very influential to me.
Like I-- was mentioned, I started writing poetry
when I was eight years old.
It was just something I liked and he was around then.
This is a poem called, as I said, "For Edward Long."
And it starts off with a quote, from a letter
that he wrote to my mother when he was in the hospital.
This was written in the fall of 1965.
And the quote is "there are some who are not of this world.
Take what you need.
Covet.
The child is one.
They will comfort her soon."
"For Edward Long."
"Pardner, you called me that first morning my grandmother
found you, drunk, homeless.
And you stayed long enough to give me my voice.
You taught me to read all those wind songs
in the verses of Stevenson.
You'd pay me a quarter to sing on your lap,
beneath the dust storm of your scruffy chin.
And in those still nights, your wine breath
sweetened the air for me.
You were father, grandfather, the man
who dug ditches for the county, and knew a code so
secret they locked it away.
Pardner, doctor, crazy mathematician, and sometimes
wizard to the child I still am.
I still believe you.
I still gaze at the fall winds you once taught me to describe.
I still shadow you.
I know wherever you are, you'll be reading poems.
And this is how I'll find you."