You know that church where we were all
having fun in the first poem.
Well, there was a guy who used to go to Sunday school
with us there named George.
His name is Johnson.
George Johnson.
I don't call the Johnson family the Johnsons in this poem.
I call them the Grubskis, and I don't want
to go into the reasons why.
It has to do with tonalities and a whole bunch of other things.
But this is the title poem from my forthcoming book
that's coming out this spring.
It's called "What They'll Love as Well Remains American".
Now George was an overweight kid, kind of fat,
and not well coordinated.
And he couldn't play ball with the rest of us very well,
and he wasn't really very bright.
And his parents gave--
not his parents.
I mean, his mother.
I never saw George's father.
But the mother bought trombone lessons for George.
George took trombone lessons.
And no way was George ever going to play the trombone.
I mean, after a year, he played probably as good
as anybody in this audience would be playing after a couple
weeks.
And we used to go over when we were little kids.
We'd go over to the Johnsons' house.
And on the way, we'd passed the house
of a woman whose name was Jensen.
And I mentioned her at the beginning
of this poem and later.
And we never saw her outside the house.
She was always just kind of looking out the window
and just lived alone in this house
and apparently never went out.
No one even knew how she got food in there or anything.
But anyway, then we go up the hill to George's place.
And at one time, George and his mother
and her mother, George's grandmother,
lived there together.
And one time, they suffered from a disease that's
called Saint Vitus Dance.
And I don't know if you know what that is,
but it's just a dreadful condition where people
shake and flutter all the time.
And I don't know if that's what they
had because some people tell me you can't recover from this.
But whatever they had, George's mother did recover.
But the grandmother never did.
She was just shaking all the time.
So we were just little kids.
We go in the house, and we'd be sitting in the parlor there.
And this fluttery old woman would come in,
and George's mother would say, mother, why don't you
entertain us by sitting down and playing one
of your original compositions.
And this is just what would happen.
This old shaky woman would sit down
at the piano and bang out some wretched tune
that she'd composed herself.
Well, you know how kids are.
I mean, when you're a little kid,
you really have a sense of the absurd.
and we're all sitting there, trying not to laugh.
Just trying to hold in this laughter.
And we can't wait to get outside.
Also we're just past look at this bizarre scene.
Well, a couple of years ago, for some reason,
I hadn't thought those people in years.
And a couple of years ago, I started to think about them.
And then I started to think about what
had happened in my life that how I'd loused it up so many times
and I'd lost my coordination.
I was too old, I couldn't play ball anymore.
And I never could play a musical instrument.
And it suddenly struck me that somewhere, you have to admit--
I think it's probably good for all of us
that someplace, we're going to have to stop and admit
that life reduces us all at some period to the amateur status.
And you're really not that much better than George, I mean,
when you come right down to it.
I mean, what was the difference?
And maybe because we were kids, we had a right to laugh
at what was going on in that house.
But as grown-ups, we also, I guess,
have a right to see it for the sadness that it really was.
And anyway, this poem then out of all this.
"You remember the name was Jensen.
She seemed old, always alone inside.
Face pasted gray to the window and mail never came.
Two blocks down, the Grubskies went insane.
George played rotten trombone.
Easter when they flew the flag.
Wild roses remind you the roads were gravel and vacant lots
the rule.
Poverty was real, wallet and spirit.
And each day, slow as church.
You remember threadbare church groups on the corner,
howling their faith at stars, and the violent holy rollers
renting that barn for their annual violent sing,
and the barn burned down when you came back from war.
Knowing the people you knew then are dead,
you try to believe these roads paved or improved.
The neighbors moved in while you were away.
Good looking, their dogs well fed.
You still have need to remember lots, empty and fern.
Well trimmed lawns remind you of the train your wife took.
One day forever, some far empty town,
the odd name you never recall, the time 6:23, the day October
9, the year remains a blur.
You blame this neighborhood for your failure.
In some vague way, the Grubskies degraded you beyond repair.
And you know you must play again and again.
Mrs. Jensen, pale at her window, must hear the foul music
over the good slide of traffic.
You loved them well and they remain still
with nothing to do.
No money and no will.
Love them and the gray that was their disease.
You carry for extra food in case you're
stranded in some odd empty town and need hungry lovers
for friends and need feel you are
welcome in the secret club they have formed."
[APPLAUSE]