Later, I'll read a fragment from another long poem
that I like by Walt Whitman.
And I'm going to wile away the intervening minutes
by reading some poems of mine.
[LAUGHTER]
I'm afraid, Lois, you'll be quite nervous
because these are poems that are not quite finished,
and poems I've never read before,
and poems which, next week when I look at them,
I may decide never to read again.
It's good for me to read them, once at least,
but I'm not sure about you.
But here goes.
This is called In the Dusk by Les Invalides.
And the Les Invalides is that old hospital
in Paris for wounded veterans, and outside it
is a park where often old men play that game they call bool.
A few old men play the old game of bool,
tossing, holding the crouch as the ball rolls,
strolling over and studying the ground.
With bools, it's always the creaking grace,
the slow amble, the stillness.
Always the dusk deepening, always
the past blowing its glories behind the distracted eyes,
always in hospital beds.
It's the last true men having fought the [FRENCH],,
hearing the thin, sweet clack of ball
on ball in the immense darkness of rooms.