WEBVTT

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A lot of poetry and, I think, an
awful lot of poetic expression

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is really about the
ephemeral nature of things.

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And, as I get
older, I really find

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that the old-timers were really
right in concentrating on that.

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Back in the days when
I studied literature

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in the 1950's, dark ages, they
used to hammer into our heads

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the idea of ubi sunt.

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You know, Latin,
where are they now?

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All of these people that we
knew, all of these things,

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they're all gone.

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Where do things go?

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Where do people disappear to?

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Where does the
past disappear to?

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And I think that's as proper a
subject for poetry as anything

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because it is very odd.

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This moment that
we call "now" has

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been preceded by billions
and billions and billions

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of moments, each of
which was once now.

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And these are-- it's a very
obvious kind of mystery,

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but we live in, as I said
before, a very prosaic era.

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And people don't-- you know,
you don't have time to stop

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and think about stuff like that.

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Poets sometimes do, so I'm
always chasing those ghosts.

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This is a poem about arriving
in Lisbon, in Portugal, years

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ago, when Salazar
was still in power,

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and having taken a Portuguese
freighter all the way there.

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And I wanted to write a
poem about this for years.

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And it's really funny.

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You think that
something happens to you

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and you sit down in the heat
of the moment and you write it.

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Sometimes it works that way.

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You can write it
in five minutes.

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Other times, it takes years
to figure out what went on.

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And this one took years.

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And finally, I wrote this.

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It'll be in TriQuarterly, I
just remembered, this fall.

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So you can sit down and
read it in slow motion.

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It's called, "Saudades,
The Portuguese Blues."

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"Perched at the railing
of a Portuguese freighter,

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frightened inside, wavelengths
from home and known to no one

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here except the
not-so-secret police,

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I'm struck by how that
brown-skinned girl

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in a moon-knit dress and Sunday
pumps beams from the pier

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below.

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Already, I know next
to nothing about her,

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and soon I'll know even less.

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But nothing could have
possibly prepared me

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for her long-distance
smile that gently

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bridges the mileage anywhere.

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How can I not be gladdened
by sharing the way

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she shines in the late Lisbon
light, a quivering blue glow

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seeping into the
deep and rolling sea.

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Just see how she sways
and waves at the sight

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of her father, the seaman.

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The ship's wireless operator,
positioned just now at my left,

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right beside me.

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He is back in contact with
his proudest connection,

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this motherless angel
he's been bragging

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about like a daddy, all the
way over from steamy Brooklyn

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to the shores of the Azores
and on to the mainland

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and islands of me.

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Shaken to discover myself so
removed from all the family

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I've ever known, I
couldn't be happier

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than I am now, watching him
hurry down the gangplank home.

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They charge into
each other's arms

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and then, peering up,
squinting, shading his eyes,

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he signals me his last farewell.

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Ah, well, this is where I
become a stranger again.

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An unraveled, woolly-minded,
off-season traveler all

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decked out with no place
else to go and no one

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to answer at these
ports of call.

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Soon we'll be free to be
memories of each other,

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but for one skylit minute,
radiant and radio clear,

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another part of
my head snaps on.

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It begins to crackle
with a pop song

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from long ago about kisses
and fundamental things.

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And time and I go drifting by.

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We flow with the last of
the cool, salty light,

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out across the dark
dock water that

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cradles this crusty old boat.

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In fact, as I shoulder
my pack of belongings,

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a longing overcomes me, and
for chorus after chorus, I

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can still feel that flow,
feel it pulling us apart,

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feel it nudging the
swollen summer toward fall.

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Sighing, descending
now, I can even

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feel how time will
feel as it lightens

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my momentary burden of being
all too young, all too wise,

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and all too deliriously alone."

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It takes a long time to
see yourself like that.

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