I have a friend who is an old college friend,
and in college, he lived in Vermont.
He still lives there, and I lived then and still live
in and around New York.
And so we used to visit each other some weekends
and kind of trade lore.
And so I would go to the country for a weekend to Vermont
and he'd teach me country things like hunting and fishing,
and then he'd come down to New York
and I'd teach him sort of city things like drinking
and smoking.
[LAUGHTER]
In that way, we traded what we knew.
And this poem is about something he taught me about the country.
And it's called "The Country."
"I wondered about you when you told me never
to leave a box of wooden strike-anywhere matches lying
around the house because the mice might get into them
and start a fire.
But your face was absolutely straight
when you twisted the lid down on the round
tin where the matches, you said, are always stowed.
Who could sleep that night?
Who could whisk away the thought of the one unlikely mouse,
padding along a cold water pipe behind the floral wallpaper,
gripping a single wooden match between the needles
of his teeth?
Who could not see him rounding a corner, the blue tip scratching
against a rough-hewn beam, the sudden flare,
and the creature for one bright, shining moment suddenly
thrust ahead of his time, now a fire starter, now
a torch bearer in a forgotten ritual, little
brown druid illuminating some ancient night?
Who could fail to notice, lit up in the blazing insulation,
the tiny looks of wonderment on the faces of his fellow
mice, one-time inhabitants of what once
was your house in the country?"
[LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.