WEBVTT

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The feeling I
wanted to induce, I

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can almost persuade
myself that it's authentic

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while I'm doing it.

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There are many juggling things
after and all sorts of things,

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but the feeling I
wanted to induce

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is that of entering trustfully
on a succession of just

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trivial things
that occur to you.

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In this case, to me,
but to any of us.

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And what I'm looking
for now is some way

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to say as directly as possible,
that the process is one of--

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I don't think it's
one of being original

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or of being responsible,
or intelligent or sensitive

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or anything like that.

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It's just of being trustful.

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It's like accepting what occurs.

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And the other day
in class here, I

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raked back a memory of
what I've said before,

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stolen from William Blake.

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He said, I give you the
end of a golden string.

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Just roll it into a ball.

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It will lead you in
at heaven's gate,

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built in Jerusalem's wall.

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And this process is like
getting that golden string.

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If you feel that you already
know where it's going,

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you'll let it go and head
for what that editor wants

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or what your society
is calling for,

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or what someone you're
a rival to tells you.

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But if you trust that
forward groping of your own,

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then it leads.

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It leads.

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Well, today in
class, I found myself

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led by some kind of
suicidal impulse,

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to keep referring to poets
from way back like Virgil.

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And well, so I want
to read the poem that

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has the disquieting
possibility of being

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compared to an overwhelming
classical poem by Catullus.

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This is not Hail and
Farewell, but it's called

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"At the Grave of My Brother."

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"The mirror cared less
and less at the last,

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but the tone of
his voice roamed.

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Had more to find, back
to the year he was born.

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And the world that saw him
a while, again went blind.

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Drawn backward
along the street, he

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disappeared by the cedars
that faded a long time ago.

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Near the grave where a
mother's hair was a screen, but

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she was crying.

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I see a sparrow,
chubby like him.

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Full of promise, barely holding
a branch and ready to fly.

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In his house today, his children
begin to recede from this year

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and go their own way.

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Brother, goodbye."

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