[APPLAUSE]
Ladies and gentlemen, it's a great pleasure
to be here again.
My wife and I were here a year ago.
And then I was here once, I guess, about over 10 years ago,
quite a long time ago.
And in every occasion we have enjoyed
the beautiful areas of Arizona and the wonderful spirit
of friendship and democracy that we feel around here.
I'm glad to say that my one brother whom
you may have seen in the movie has retired or semi-retired
here.
So that's another reason for our delight in coming back.
I would like to express my appreciation to Professor Muir
and--
as the Head of the Department who I believe is retiring.
I don't know how I could express my thanks to Dick and Lois
Shelton.
I think you're very lucky here to have both of them.
And Lois is a marvelous woman in all ways
and I just want to pay my respects to the way she
is running the center.
Bill Rucker, I got to know a year ago,
liked his poetry as well as that of Dick Shelton.
And now this year I've had a class with Peter Wild.
And I think I'm going to have one tomorrow with Steve Orlen
so I want to express my joy in their being beings.
I've met some of your students already.
And I would like to say hello in public
to Ruth Doty and Mark Doty.
Now we have the--
we've had a few minutes of the movie.
It really moved me to see it.
In a way, I want to just go away maybe and not
have any reading after that but I'd
like to read to you for a shorter time than I would
if you hadn't seen the movie.
And I want to begin by reading two new poems written
only a month ago, "Long Term Suffering."
By the way I assume that this sound system
sounds as if it were just fine.
If anyone can't hear well would you raise your hands?