WEBVTT

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The next one is also written in
rhyme and meter, which I wrote

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for about 10 years, I guess.

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But I'll only read
probably three poems.

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I tend to read
newer things more.

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I suppose everybody does.

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This is a poem on the
other end of the scale.

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It's a kind of elegy.

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When my father died a couple
of years after my son was born,

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I wrote a poem called
"Christmas Eve in Whitneyville."

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He was buried on
Christmas Eve because he

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died on the 22nd of December.

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And Whitneyville is
the name of a section

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of Hamden, Connecticut
where I was born

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and where he was born and died.

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It was named after Eli
Whitney, who had a factory

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and built workers' housing--

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Whitney's Village, which
then became Whitneyville.

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When I wrote the
poem, I was already

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beginning to write free
verse and syllabics

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to move around and look for
new kinds of noise to make.

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But I wrote this in
iambic quatrains, A-B-A-B,

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partly because I
thought I could do it.

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I thought I knew I could do it.

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And also partly because I
wanted the reference really

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to Gray's "Elegy."

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I thought of calling it "Elegy
in a Suburban Churchyard"

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for a while but that was just
too flippant for the poem

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that I was writing.

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I think I'll try the
glasses for this one.

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I just got reading
glasses about a year ago.

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And I am not vain about them
at all, but for some reason,

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I keep forgetting them when I go
to poetry readings, of course.

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December and the
closing of the year.

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The momentary carolers
complete their Christmas Eves

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and quickly disappear into their
houses on each lighted street.

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Each car is put
away in each garage.

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Each husband home from
work to celebrate.

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Has wedged-- has closed
his house around him--

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I want to stop.

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I'm really feeling freaked
out for some reason.

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I'll get over it.

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December and the
closing of the year.

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The momentary carolers
complete their Christmas Eves

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and quickly disappear into their
houses on each lighted street.

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Each car is put
away in each garage.

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Each husband home from
work to celebrate.

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Has closed his house
around him, like a cage

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and wedged the tree until
the tree stood straight.

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Tonight, you lie in
Whitneyville again.

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Near where you live and near
the woods or farms which

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Eli Whitney settled with the
men who worked at mass producing

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firearms.

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The Main Street, which
was nothing after all,

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except a school, a
stable, and two stores,

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was improvised and individual,
picking its way alone

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until the wars.

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Now Whitneyville is like the
other places, ranch houses

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stretching flat beyond
the square, same stores,

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and movies, same
composite faces speaking

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the language of the public air.

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Old houses of
brown shingle still

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surround this graveyard where
you wept when you were 10

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and helped to set a
coffin in the ground.

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You left a friend from school
behind you then and now return,

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a man of 52.

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Talk to the boy.

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Tell him about the years
when Whitneyville quadrupled

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and how you and all his friends
went on to make careers,

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had cars as long as hay
racks, boarded planes

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for Rome and Paris
where the pace was slow

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and took the time to think how
yearly gains, profit and volume

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made the business grow.

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The things you had to
miss, you said last week--

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or thought you had to--

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take your breath away.

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You propped yourself on pillows
where your cheek was hollow,

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stumbled lightly with new gray.

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This love is jail.

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Another sets us free.

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Tonight, the houses
and their noise

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distort the thin
rewards of solidarity.

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The houses leaned
together for support.

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The noises fail and
lights go on upstairs.

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The men and women are
undressing now to go to sleep.

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They put their clothes on
chairs to take them up again.

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I think of how, all
over Whitneyville

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when midnight comes, they
lie together and are quieted,

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to sleep as children sleep
who suck their thumbs,

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cramped in the narrow
rumple of each bed.

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They will not have
unpleasant thoughts tonight.

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They make their
houses jails and they

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will take no risk of freedom for
the appetite or knowledge of it

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when they are awake.

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The lights go out and
it is Christmas day.

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The stones are white, the
grass is black and deep.

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I will go back
and leave you here

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to stay where the dark
houses hardened into sleep.

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