WEBVTT

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This is a poem I should read.

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It's called "Christmas
Improvisations."

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And I dedicated this to Roy
Harvey Pierce, whose name

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might be familiar to you.

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I am the poet of peace,
numbering in my words

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the harm that has been,
not ignoring the future,

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the world can be
shattered by a pin.

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In my youth, I sat and mope
and dreamed up goodwill

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to all and their contentment.

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I was discontented
except in this dreaming.

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And I decided that
too was real, I

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did not have to go out
and slaughter for it.

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These cannot be words
alone to salve my pride,

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I have died and
I can live again.

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Close to the ranks of men
as I saw it from the start,

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in my single way,
now I see it needs

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myself broken apart and
scattered in profusion,

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at which I no longer lie
in pain, seeing myself

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in multiple illusion.

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Alive we say, look,
we are alive and seek

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for someone who says yes
out of a cloud or a tree

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or the chirp of a bird
suddenly intelligible.

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We would jump into
that cloud, that tree

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or catch the bird to fly
us through the eternal air,

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say we would be happy.

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