When my wife was pregnant with our first son,
I had a dream that I was summoned by a character out
of a Kafka novel, and I was to appear
at the New York House of Justice, and I wasn't told why.
And when I arrived there, there were long row of stone steps.
When I arrived there, there were millions
of people on the steps, and I could see no way
to get up to the courthouse.
But I started walking to the courthouse.
And as I started walking to the courthouse, like the Red Sea,
the crowd parted, left the path for me
to walk up to the courthouse.
I walked up the steps, and when I got to the top of the steps,
a nurse came out of the courthouse
and handed me a baby, and all the people
applauded while I was--
[LAUGHTER]
And this next poem bears only a slight resemblance
to the dream, but I think you'll see it there.
It's called "Welcoming Poem for the Birth of My Son."
"Bubbling and bouncing, lumbering
amid the tickle of little fishes, whales jostle the sea.
They are blubber balloons sailing their bodies happiness,
spouting hallelujah to the surmise of seals,
the memoranda of walruses, while in the daft radiance of Arctic
noon.
Emperor penguins gather for whom,
as always, it is opening night.
Again, this blazing noon, the play begins.
Reindeer grazing eastward, raise their dazed eyes,
jaws and their poised heads still sluicing lichen juices.
They gaze beyond hunger in first wonder of wet light,
dreaming what is there, while whales are blooming,
while walruses are making lists for Christmas,
and emperor penguins parade new clothes through white meadows,
the sun struck kingdom.
Up from the horizon and purple depth,
humped with porpoises, over the frozen sea where
whales bodies are blossoming games,
past walruses puckered to blow kisses, whiskered like Santa
Claus, to the applause of seals, fanning with their flippers
the hot glaciers in the zeal of their unbounded,
bounding hearts, he comes, all spirit,
dressed in flesh and blood.
He comes crowned in his cheeks and fuzz,
in a dazzle of fingers and toes, making miracles
with his glad eyes.
He walks in a garden of penguins, enraptured
on their eggs, crying goodwill to that far city where
my fears hide."