WEBVTT

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Death is the subject that gets
poets sort of up in the morning

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and at the window as often
is far as they make it.

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This fellow came
over last spring

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to wash the windows
in our house.

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And I was thinking as
I wrote out his check

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whether I could deduct
this because it seems

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to be it was tax-deductible
since poets--

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and it's kind of
their job is just

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looking at the bird feeder.

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Someone said that the hardest
part about being a poet

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is knowing what to do with
what, the other 23 and 1/2

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hours of the day.

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[LAUGHTER]

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But at any rate, death
is the great topic

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and the fellowship of dust--

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George Herbert calls it.

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And there's a time
in a poet's life

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where he or she feels a
particularly heavy obligation

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to write a poem
that acknowledges

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his or her mortality.

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And that is when they are
undergoing a birthday divisible

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by 10.

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So that it's almost
unavoidable that you

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have collections almost of poems
about turning 30 and 40 and so

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on.

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These poems are all the
same poem essentially.

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They're very gloomy, and they're
kind of riddled with self pity

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of the poet you know regards
to the milestone solemnly

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and kind of squints into the
future a little tentatively.

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And I wanted to get kind of
the source of all this gloom.

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And so the poem I wrote is
called "On Turning Ten."

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[LAUGHTER]

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"On Turning Ten--
the whole idea of it

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makes me feel like I'm coming
down with something, something

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worse than any stomachache
or the headaches

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I get from reading in bad
light, a kind of measles

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of the spirit, a mumps of the
psyche, a disfiguring chicken

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pox of the soul.

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You tell me it is too
early to be looking back,

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but that is because
you have forgotten

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the perfect simplicity
of being one

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and the beautiful complexity
introduced by two.

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But I can lie on my bed
and remember every digit.

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At four, I was an
Arabian wizard.

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I could make myself
invisible by drinking

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a glass of milk a certain way.

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At seven, I was a soldier.

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At nine, a Prince.

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But now, I am mostly
at the window,

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watching the late
afternoon light.

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Back then, it never
fell so solemnly

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against the sight
of my tree house.

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And my bicycle never
leaned against the garage

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as it does today, all the dark
blue speed drained out of it.

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This is the
beginning of sadness,

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I say to myself, as I
walk through the universe

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in my sneakers.

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It is time to say goodbye to
my imaginary friends, time

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to turn the first big number.

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It seems only yesterday I used
to believe there was nothing

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under my skin but a light.

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If you cut me, I would shine.

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But now, when I fall upon
the sidewalks of life,

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I skin my knees.

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I bleed."

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[APPLAUSE]

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