And I think I'm going to close with just two more.
This book follows a journey not just
from Africa through Europe, through this continent,
but very much from South to North and from East to West.
And so it comes to meditate upon what
the history of this country was, the notion of the pioneers,
the quest for riches of the spiritual salvation
comes of delusion that that quest brought about it
like a cloud of flies around the heads of those who
are making their way westward.
Gold.
This poem is called "Wilderness and the American Mind."
In fact, Ted, isn't it the name of the great classic book
of American scholarship?
I think, Wilderness of the American Mind?
I must have just taken it from that book.
Anyway, liked the title.
"What is the structure of a curse?
Some movement, revolution, and you saw it there.
A light on the road in place of knowing, then knowing for sure.
The ancestors have never been more agitated,
arms and legs hung out to dry, fingers testing surface tension
on the mounds.
Fearful, covetous, we made our way across.
Some gates swung open and we broke the others down.
The land-to-body ratio, you can't have both.
We said it before the wind took hold.
Afraid to hurt, afraid to suffer more.
What would it mean to stay alive?
I could have sworn there was a map.
Soon after we arrived, I read the stories
of true heartlessness.
Too simple to have said they had no way to go.
New forms of poverty, a show of force.
Why should the tongue swell up that way?
The kid rebuilt the fire with bones.
We paid him out in kind.