Well, I finish up with one more poem,
and then we leave a little time for questions
and a bit of conversation.
Let's see.
One poem that I want to read is--
if I can find it.
Well, I'll end with a song.
I mentioned, my father, who was an alcoholic.
And later, as I said, I was and am a alcoholic--
recovering alcoholic for me.
I loved my father very much.
I was very angry at times and even feared and hated him.
Yet I suppose in some kind of, I guess, contradiction also,
I loved him very deeply.
When he passed away, I was living in California,
and he had gone into a coma.
And I was called by my sister.
So I came home.
I was teaching in California.
And I sat with him for a long time
before he passed away in 1978.
So this song is for him.
Beating The Heartbeat
Before my father returned to the continuing Earth life.
Before he traveled back North, we sat with him for long hours.
Early, early one morning at the hospital,
just he and I and the oscilloscope
above his bed beating the heartbeat of his life,
beating the heartbeat of my life.
We're together.
This song remembers him.
(SINGING) Heart beating.
Heart beating.
Heart beating, beating, beating, beating, beating, beating,
beating.
Heart beating.
Heart beating, beating, beating, beating, beating, beating.
Life beating.
Earth beating.
All beating, beating, beating, beating, beating, beating,
beating.
Life beating.
Earth beating.
All beating, beating, beating, beating, beating, beating,
beating.
Heart beating.
Life beating.
We shall know living, living, living, living, living, living.
Heart beating.
Life beating.
We shall know living, living, living, living, living, living.
We shall know living, We shall know living.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]