Well right at the end of writing this book.
I became a dad.
I now have a five-year-old.
And so this-- as those of us who are parents know--
everything, yet, somehow, also changed nothing.
(LAUGHS) Everything was the same,
and everything was different, both.
Just twice as much stuff.
So I just want to read a few poems about that.
This poem, I wrote on that day that we found out
that Justice Kennedy was not going
to be staying on the Supreme Court
it's just called, "Today."
"Today, Justice Kennedy retired.
Farewell, pious blowhard.
From the dark, collective grief of half of us,
I stole one long hour to think--
despair is a privilege we can't afford.
But, really, a few of us totally can, which is,
of course, precisely, what creates
the vacuum this continual, impervious, self-satisfied,
classic, righteous, American malice can,
gleefully, pour into to crush everything, especially
our clever laments.
Today, all my rich, white friends
are talking again about leaving for houses they have not yet
decided to purchase over the border.
It's grotesque.
Yet, I, too, admit, when we finally realized our son,
who remembers every song, would not speak like all the others,
moving deeper into places we could not go, we,
without hesitation-- in fear, with our money--
went over whatever we thought separated us
from a solution to this and, also, other problems most
don't even get to name.
Today, in my hybrid, I, too, see the blue tarps
under the freeway as I drive him to another appointment.
He has the softest skin and is never frantic.
He loves when the trucks get so dangerously close
and sings the same song I taught him
years ago when I was in despair about how to be happy.
It's been so much better, but, still,
I walk around as if something that cannot fail protects
everything I need.
And only now can I ask--
what dream was I born into?
And what will happen when the dreamer wakes?