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I'm not going to
read too much longer,

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so we'll all be very happy.

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I'm going to read
three more poems.

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One of the poems
is a little long.

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I'm going to read
a poem from Rose.

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The next two poems I'm
going to read are similar,

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and I didn't realize
this until later.

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This imperative to remember, I
think, poses a lot of problems,

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especially for someone
like me who doesn't

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have a very good memory.

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In the next two poems,
I think that the poem

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enacts within its duration the
failure of memory, my memory.

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The first one, I
think, comes from,

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I had a love for the tradition
of the "Midrash," which

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is a Hebraic tradition in which
stories are told and retold

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for clarification.

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And I thought that
made absolute sense.

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But there are events that
are in our lives that

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are so huge or so mysterious--

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death, love, exile.

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They're so large that
we can't understand them

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except that we keep telling
them over and over again

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and each time modifying it maybe
with the end of clarification

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in mind.

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This poem is called "Visions
and Interpretations."

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So it's about a failure of
memory and it's retelling.

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"Visions and Interpretations."

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"Because this
graveyard is a hill,

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I must climb up to see my
dead, stopping once midway

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to rest beside this tree.

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It was here between
the anticipation

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of exhaustion and exhaustion,
between vale and peak.

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My father came down to me and we
climbed arm in arm to the top.

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He cradled the bouquet
I brought and, I,

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a good son never mentioned
his grave erect like a door

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behind him.

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And it was here one
summer day I sat down

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to read an old book
when I looked up

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from the moonlit page, I saw a
vision of a world about to come

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and a world about to go.

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Truth is, I've not seen
my father since he died.

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And no, the dead do not
walk arm in arm with me.

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If I carry flowers to them,
I do so without their help.

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The blossom is not always
bright, torch-like, but often

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heavy as sun newspaper.

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Truth is, I came here
with my son one day

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and we rested against this
tree, and I fell asleep

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and dreamed a dream which,
upon my boy waking me, I told.

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Neither of us understood.

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Then we went up.

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Even this is not accurate,
let me begin again.

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Between two griefs, a tree.

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Between my hands,
white chrysanthemums,

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yellow chrysanthemums.

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The old book I
finished reading, I've

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since read again and again.

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And what was far grows near.

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And what is near
grows more dear.

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And all of my visions
and interpretations

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depend on what I see and
between my eyes is always

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the rain, the migrant rain."

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