This next poem is personal, a little bit more--
a little bit talky.
So you kind of have to forgive a couple of places in it.
Starts off abstractly, but then it has a little story
to tell in the beginning.
It's in two parts.
It's called "Winter Light."
The first part is about memory, in a sense.
Due to reasons which I can guess at but never know,
I don't seem to have the same sense of memory
that other people do--
in terms of-- especially, at least,
in terms of, say, reminiscing about things or in terms
of picturing things that are particularly
pleasing or even displeasing or whatever in my past.
And a thing that I've discovered is that, in a disguised manner,
it was a kind of unconscious subject
in my poems for a long time.
It's more direct here, because what happens, I think,
is that part of our sense of identity is based on--
part of our sense of knowing who we
are is based on knowing who we've been,
is based on our past.
It's based on having a history, living in the world.
And without that sense of memory, which is automatic,
there's a fragmented sense, maybe, about the self.
"Winter Light"-- that's all you have to know.
It's kind of obvious within the poem,
but my principal when I was in grade school, who
I mentioned here, was someone who had an unusual name.
And when I got in big trouble, or what
I thought was big trouble, in fifth or sixth grade,
you know the kind of big trouble they put you
in solitary for so you can't talk to other people, which was
what I was in big trouble for--
[LAUGHTER]
--I had increasingly got in trouble
throughout the day or whatever, and I ended up in his office
and then got in further trouble there.
And he was going to give me a ride home
and tell my parents to put me in the basement [LAUGHS]
overnight or something like that.
[LAUGHTER]
And because he had a name that I happened to know a little--
because I was a baseball fan, I happened to know a little piece
of trivia about--
I was able to rescue myself--
[LAUGHTER]
--by recognizing, by making a connection between his name
and someone that I knew of.
That's mentioned within the poem.
The second half of the poem, which is a little bit talky,
is I think about in-between states, between life and death.
What do you think about after you die?
If you could call it thought-- about dreams,
about things like that.
And then there's a little rescuing kind of gesture in it
that allows me to return to the world.
Anyway, "Winter Light."
"The curious, compelling way in which the light was sourceless,
not so much dimming as withdrawing,
from the white houses their minute flecks
of white paint in that light, giving them
the rough appearance of reality, something
to be stored and remembered.
Now, I couldn't have seen that, walking home
from school in rubber boots.
I had a pencil box, a neat little representation
of the great official world.
My principal was Mr. Sukeforth, brother
of the man who signed Jackie Robinson in another life
just after the war.
When I asked him, he just beamed.
So now I remember that people are a source of light
and now that all that litter of people and things
was what I loved but taught myself too well,
and for no reason, to forget.
Is it possible that we will remember a while?
That the process of death will be a dimming, a lying
will-less, emotionless, far beneath whatever is going on,
while certain and chosen images gradually
slow to shadow in the mind?
If we dream, then we must take something serious
from the world.
But what we dream is so often a curiosity I can't quite place.
I was thinking about two friends, strangers
to each other and equally loved.
In my dream, they met.
Now I would like to lie down under a great New England oak
to practice breathing a while.
I believe it would signify some things important,
some things that have no serious advantage in the world
but are toys--
sleeping, falling in love.