WEBVTT

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It's contraption that's
over the chair here.

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It's a stool I used
to get in the bed.

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And once before-- can
you hear me in the back?

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Once before, it came in
handy for something strange,

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I was up in the Adirondacks.

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Having to get down to New York
City in a one engine plane

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and got into the plane, and
the first thing I found out

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was the seat wouldn't stay up.

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So it didn't look like
a very promising flight.

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So I finally cooked up the
idea of using this stool

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to prop it up.

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And it was a terrible flight,
but, I, without this footstool,

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I don't think it would happen.

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Can I have some water?

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I'd like to start off with
two or three older poems.

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Most of what I'll
be reading tonight

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is quite recent, written
during the last year or so.

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But I'll start with two or
three of the older ones.

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The first is called
"January as a Lost River."

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To press your ear,
up to a stone,

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then here it's home,
shattered hundreds

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of lights in the cottonwoods.

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The leaves like my own thoughts
straining to free themselves.

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The leaves do anything
the wind wants.

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The season's trash struggling
to distinguish myself

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from its damp, undergrowth of
dreams, the half truths, we

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wrestle and sleep.

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And you, put your heart in your
hands holding it up to your ear

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afraid it will stop aching.

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This desert of
yours, no one told me

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I'd have to bring my oasis.

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