Well, I want to read this poem and revert to this topic.
It's called "The Farm on the Great Plain."
"A telephone line goes cold.
Birds tread it wherever it goes.
A farm back of a great plane, tugs and end of the line.
I call that farm every year, ringing it, listening, still.
No one is home at the farm.
The lion gives only a hum.
Some year, I will ring the line on a night
at last, the right one.
And with an eye tapered for Braille,
from the phone on the wall, I will see the tenant who waits,
the last one left at the place.
Through the dark, my Braille eye will lovingly touch his face.
Hello.
Is mother at home?
No one is home today.
But father, he should be there.
No one.
No one is here.
But you, are you the one?
Then the lion will be gone because both ends will be home.
No space, no birds, no farm.
Myself will be the plane.
Wise as winter is gray, pure as cold posts
go, pacing toward what I know."
I want to make a turn on this poem,
sacrifice it by looking back saying--
some syllables are more equal than others.
And there is a syllable all around through this poem.
I didn't write it with this in mind.
But now that I look at it, I see that secret ally, the champion
syllable, the one that says, farm, hum, home, home, home,
home.
Millions of people meditate with a syllable.
It's from in the middle and abstracted that
says, home, home, farm, home.
Now what if I'm going to try to dream up a nightmare or maybe
a happy dream?
What if our words and writings are
haunted by these good spirits trying to help us?
And we analyze what we say and we listen to speeches
and think we're responding to ideas.
And all the time, we're being tugged around
by these subliminal influences.
Just now, when I was reading this,
I suddenly saw a line that--
it's just too much.
[LAUGHTER]
Then the line will be gone.
Well, it may not sound like very much when I look at it.
I see all those syllables scrambling
to help each other sort of secretly getting
together, nearer than where rhyme would be because people
are alerted to that.
But these are closer.
I don't mean from management.
I just mean from luck.