All right, for a lighter note, I walloped
you guys with some pretty serious problems.
Here's a lighter one, kind of.
[CHUCKLES]
I love venereal terms, and I don't
mean as in venereal diseases.
[LAUGHTER]
I mean, that's the same word, same spelling.
As most of you know--
most poets I know of-- love venereal terms too.
Venereal terms, for those who you may not know,
are words for groups of animals or things.
For instance, a "sloth" of bears or a "colony" of beavers
or a "peal" of bells or--
I wrote down a few because I can't remember.
There's so many-- a "babble" of cell phones.
And this poem, which is called "Dawn Over the Tiber River,"
in Rome, deals with what's called
a "murmuration of starlings."
So I don't know if any of you have been lucky enough
to see these flocks of starlings at dusk, or dawn,
where there are thousands of them
doing these phenomenal acrobatic formations in the sky.
I can see, you're imagining them, right?
They're just beautiful and graceful.
And if you can imagine thousands and thousands of starlings--
you don't want to be under them because you're
going to be bombarded.
[LAUGHTER]
But where I was, in Rome, I was at a bridge
overlooking the Tiber River.
And it was dusk.
And I was with my husband, and all of a sudden,
there were 10,000 starlings doing this murmuration,
that venereal term.
We watched it.
It was one of the most spectacular acts of nature
I have ever seen.
So if you have not seen that, go someplace and see it.
OK, so this is "Dawn Over the Tiber River."
"100,000 starlings rise skyward, in fluid streams and swelling
throngs, spinning, looping, stretching
their chirping flocks, like taffy,
above the platinum, shimmering water.
Their 10,000 cries like stampeding waterfalls
or electronic music gone viral.
A five-mile long serpentine river, of dark, speckled birds,
is rushing headlong into a new day
at the end of a terrible year.
A year full of terrors, death of thousands
from the Fukushima tsunami.
Oh, death of my beautiful delicate mother,
and death of my husband's lonely, soldiering father.
But the day is born anew.
The starling singing and winging their terrifying joy
into a world that's fresh with dew
on the surface of cars, bridges, and ancient Roman ruins.
Only, look.
There is the ancient Emperor, Nero,
crowned with a dripping ring of bird guano.
[LAUGHTER]
Simply to be born is enough, sometimes.
Much harder to endure."