The character you're going to meet in this poem
is my dog Ned.
He's a golden retriever and a spectacular example
of his kind.
Deep Lane.
June 23rd, evening of the first fireflies.
We're walking in the cemetery down the road,
and I look up from my distracted study of whatever,
an unfocused gaze somewhere a few feet in front of my shoes,
and see that Ned has run on ahead with the champagne
plume of his tail held especially high,
his head erect, which is often a sign
that he has something he believes
he is not allowed to have.
And in the gathering twilight, what is it that is gathered?
Who is doing the harvesting?
I can make out that the long horizontal
between his lovely jaws is one of the four stakes planted
on the slope to indicate where the backhoe will
dig a new grave.
Of course, my impulse is to run after him,
to replace the marker out of respect for the rule
that we won't desecrate the tombs
or at least for those who knew the woman whose name inks
a placard in the rectangle claimed by the four
poles of vanishing, three polls now,
and how it's within their recollection, their gathering,
she'll live.
Evening of memory, spark lamps in the grass,
I stand and watch him go in his wild figure eights.
I say, you run, darling.
You tear up that hill.
[APPLAUSE]
Well, I read that poem this spring
in a very fancy circumstance.
It was for the Royal Society of Literature in London,
and there were a number of women who work in the office there
who got really excited about that last line.
And now whenever somebody has trouble in the office,
they say you run, darling.
You tear up that hill.
I really-- I like that.