[PAGE FLIPPING]
And I'll close with very short [CLEARS THROAT] sequence
of excerpts from the final poem in this book,
which involves moving, of course, across deserts,
over mountains, finding headwaters,
once one gets across the Continental Divide--
the question of what's the psychological equivalent
of a Continental Divide--
and by which you find your way to the ocean,
and [CLEARS THROAT] is the ocean a place where equivalencies
are ultimate, where some moral justice comes back
at you from the natural world?
So [clears throat] what I'm going to do,
you'll hear the numbers jump.
There are 18 very brief sections.
I'm just going to read about four or five of them.
So I'll just say number one and then number seven,
and then it's number 18.
And [clears throat] since this is the last one,
I'll add just one more quote of Shakespeare's in which Antony
says Cleopatra--
it's interesting how the word necessity comes up
between men and women in crucial moments in these plays--
"hear me, queen, the strong necessity of time
commands our services awhile.
But my full heart remains in use with you."
So that would be my validation, but here's a few sections
from "Ocean."
"One-- I left my face up there and went on
with the others over stones, weed, sand, road,
tree trunk, hole, bridge, factory walls
now darkening the bed, the mouths of pipes,
old jetty stumps and pylons, green moss,
purple shredded outlets lengthening the drag
where there could be remade a body.
Cities climbed high-throated toward others listening
if they were not at war.
Seven-- and so it was such history.
By night, when others buried off wormsong and ant,
come back now that you're hacking down the tree.
How are you spending it?
Why else be terrified?
12-- what do you have to trade?
What would you die for this far in the track?
I'm asking every rut and furrow, messenger.
15-- what of the unfolding rows?
Four outer petals set against the night as
yet unshadowed by the inside flower,
the room transparent coraline, already turning back
[? to all ?] the hardened kings under it.
Do not, it opens further.
Do not, weighing everything.
18-- when I set out, I thought of justice.
It was cold and fair.
It was the color of consent, more shapely
than a flower or the sky forever opening
as we turn self-balancing.
There were trees along the shore.
Quick water lights glanced up and climbed the leaves
till there were none.
Even the poor grew ashen on the inside.
Even the poor let go of the sad investigations.
One step away from nakedness on either side,
I walked on, following my version of the first blade
cutting in this far, so that another voice could
drop between the words, return, blind one, you blinded one."
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]