And the last poem that I'm going to read
is for John Gardner, who died in a motorcycle accident
this September, and who is very sorely missed.
And it's called "Notes for an Elegy."
"Because you died in autumn, I write as though the leaves
had turned for you, as though the sun's
defection on this chilly day were somehow particular.
I want to write condolence notes, not to your friends,
but to the ones who didn't know you yet.
I tell them how you give a rough pat to the dog,
the backhand of attention to a thousand things
had that sufficed.
Because your vivid life was the continuous stream of fiction,
is death a kind of waking up?
Did recklessness get you after all?
I used to picture you years from now typing your way to old age
through the restless nights the way
you typed that summer in the room under mine
when I followed the clattering footsteps of your old machine
all the way to sleep.
[AUDIENCE CLAPPING]