WEBVTT

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OK, and the last is this
little essay called "On Seeing."

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And I am moved to
read this tonight

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because, all day, as I'm
sure many of you have been,

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I've been very disheartened
by this horrible news

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of this beheaded journalist,
Jim Foley, in Syria by ISIS.

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And there are so
many things that

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are outside our range of
vision in this world that go on

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as we sit here comfortably,
so this essay attempts

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to make a very, very, very
slight nod to that condition.

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So I'm going to read it.

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It's very short, and
I will close with it.

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"On Seeing."

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I do need a little
water, though.

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"When I was a kid, I wandered
through the woods in Coventry,

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Connecticut, until I got lost.

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I was with my sister, and
we couldn't see eventually

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where we'd come from.

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Nor could we see or
predict the hermit's hut

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we stumbled on with its broken
windows and torn mattress.

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This last fact impressed
me particularly,

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the fact of the torn
mattress, and I found myself

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imagining the vermin that
shared the bed with the hermit,

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the tiny rat's tails that
whipped around his eyelids

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at night.

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And I was also impressed
with the fact of the hermit,

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who, in fact, we couldn't
see, though I imagined him

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in vivid detail for my
sister's edification--

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his malevolent face, his
snarled beard and hair,

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the dagger shaking in
his cruel, bony fingers

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and pointing at our throats.

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This would be one
of the last walks

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I would take with my sister,
not because either of us

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are incapacitated or dead but
because eventually my sister

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came to distrust me.

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I was an enthusiast
for the hermit hut

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and things of that nature.

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It excited me unreasonably
to become lost in the woods,

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to pit my childish wits against
the unknown and terrifying

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world, and it excited me even
more to frighten my sister.

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I couldn't see at the time
the deep caves of estrangement

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that were forming in
my sister's heart,

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and even when we found our way
to the right path, the path

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that would take us back to
our grandmother's house,

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even at that fortuitous
turn of events,

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I couldn't see that luck
was not a given in any life.

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Years later, a man
is pointing out

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the constellations in a western
sky, and I can't see them.

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I can't see the Big Dipper,
the Milky Way, or Scorpio.

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The man is very
patiently indicating

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how the scorpion's tail
curves through the sky,

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but all I see are
many points of light

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all over everywhere in the black
night, none distinguishable

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from the other by virtue
of intensity or direction.

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Still, to be kind, I lie.

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I see, I say,
though I can't see.

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My mother always said I couldn't
see the forest for the trees,

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but I don't see this as
generally true of me,

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though it may have had some
particular truth in the past,

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a time I can no longer see.

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I often don't see how a
certain thing comes to pass.

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For example, x may
happen, then y.

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But to me, there is no
alphabetical progression.

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It might just as well
have been x, then l.

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It might just as well
have been e, then c.

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I don't see why, between
intimate acquaintances,

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estrangement
eventually surfaces as

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if it had been there all
along hiding and out of sight.

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I know I play a part
in this estrangement,

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but I don't see what it is.

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The things we see are
always less interesting

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than the things we can't
see, but when we eventually

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do see the latter,
they, too, join

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the ranks of the uninteresting.

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One almost never sees
regret galloping along

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in the distance.

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It is its nature, whereas
the nature of love

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is to appear and disappear
like a magician's rabbit.

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Sometimes when concocting a
meal without my glasses on,

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I can't see the salt pouring
invisibly from carton to pot.

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On the other hand, when I
cook while wearing glasses,

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they fog up so that I can't
see the sauteing onions,

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the steaming vegetables.

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Today in the grocery store,
I didn't see the man bearing

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along behind me,
nor apparently did

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he see me when he rammed
his cart into my heel,

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causing it to bleed.

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Nor did I see my own blood
leaving a spotty, macabre trail

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throughout the aisles,
marking my route

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from produce to
laundry detergent.

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Some gaze deep, deep
into the blackest night

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and see the lost future in
stars that have ceased to exist.

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Who could believe this?

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War, murder, the
torture of prisoners

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all take place way past my
line of vision offstage,

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and so perhaps I do
not believe any of it.

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The invisible plots
against us, the destiny

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of a village, which
at one moment is full

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of busy, reasonably
happy citizens,

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a kid carrying a bag of
groceries, a man on a bike,

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a colony of dogs, a woman
with dark eyes gazing dreamily

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through her kitchen window
at the precise moment the sky

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bursts into flame.

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We should have left breadcrumbs,
I told my sister that day

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in the woods, but we
should have left blood."

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Thanks.

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[APPLAUSE]