WEBVTT

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This last poem is a love poem.

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It's a sort of middle
aged love poem.

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And it's about life
coming to our house

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after I've been running and
then shoveling the walk.

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It's called "A Winter's Tale."

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It's the last thing I'll read.

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"A Winter's Tale."

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"How did I lose
and find my life?

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The stars have their homes.

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The moon needs no country.

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And the snow distilling
its icy existence

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to a moment on my palm
fears no vanishing,

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but falls and falls in its
dreaming and real existence.

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So, I stand in my yard
staring up at the window

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where your face might
appear, calling me in, bathed

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in the sweat of my
running mile after mile up

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the river in search of the
body that leaves me no wisdom

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but only the soft flaking and
fattening of a soul past 40.

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If I were a young lover,
I would fly like a sprite

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up to that window,
scraping to be let in,

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calling your name like
a wound in my side,

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and only your touch, like
a preacher electrified

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with the godhead,
lightening the believer,

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fainting him back
to earth, might

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conjure a salve to the slashing
you've left me to hold.

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But I'm no longer 20.

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I'm only scooping snow from the
walk, not bleeding in the cold.

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And that same sweet light up
there stays in these moments

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where your face won't appear,
as you know already what

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I'll do moments from
now, open the door

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and walk as I have half
my life, back into yours."

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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