WEBVTT

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This next poem is personal,
a little bit more--

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a little bit talky.

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So you kind of have to forgive
a couple of places in it.

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Starts off abstractly, but
then it has a little story

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to tell in the beginning.

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It's in two parts.

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It's called "Winter Light."

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The first part is about
memory, in a sense.

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Due to reasons which I can
guess at but never know,

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I don't seem to have
the same sense of memory

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that other people do--

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in terms of--
especially, at least,

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in terms of, say, reminiscing
about things or in terms

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of picturing things
that are particularly

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pleasing or even displeasing
or whatever in my past.

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And a thing that I've discovered
is that, in a disguised manner,

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it was a kind of
unconscious subject

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in my poems for a long time.

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It's more direct here,
because what happens, I think,

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is that part of our sense
of identity is based on--

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part of our sense
of knowing who we

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are is based on
knowing who we've been,

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is based on our past.

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It's based on having a
history, living in the world.

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And without that sense of
memory, which is automatic,

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there's a fragmented sense,
maybe, about the self.

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"Winter Light"-- that's
all you have to know.

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It's kind of obvious
within the poem,

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but my principal when I
was in grade school, who

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I mentioned here, was someone
who had an unusual name.

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And when I got in
big trouble, or what

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I thought was big trouble,
in fifth or sixth grade,

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you know the kind of
big trouble they put you

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in solitary for so you can't
talk to other people, which was

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what I was in big trouble for--

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[LAUGHTER]

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--I had increasingly
got in trouble

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throughout the day or whatever,
and I ended up in his office

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and then got in
further trouble there.

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And he was going to
give me a ride home

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and tell my parents to put
me in the basement [LAUGHS]

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overnight or
something like that.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And because he had a name that
I happened to know a little--

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because I was a baseball fan, I
happened to know a little piece

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of trivia about--

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I was able to rescue myself--

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[LAUGHTER]

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--by recognizing, by making
a connection between his name

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and someone that I knew of.

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That's mentioned
within the poem.

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The second half of the poem,
which is a little bit talky,

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is I think about in-between
states, between life and death.

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What do you think
about after you die?

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If you could call it
thought-- about dreams,

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about things like that.

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And then there's a little
rescuing kind of gesture in it

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that allows me to
return to the world.

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Anyway, "Winter Light."

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"The curious, compelling way in
which the light was sourceless,

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not so much dimming
as withdrawing,

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from the white houses
their minute flecks

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of white paint in that
light, giving them

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the rough appearance
of reality, something

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to be stored and remembered.

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Now, I couldn't have
seen that, walking home

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from school in rubber boots.

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I had a pencil box, a
neat little representation

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of the great official world.

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My principal was Mr.
Sukeforth, brother

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of the man who signed Jackie
Robinson in another life

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just after the war.

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When I asked him,
he just beamed.

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So now I remember that
people are a source of light

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and now that all that
litter of people and things

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was what I loved but
taught myself too well,

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and for no reason, to forget.

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Is it possible that we
will remember a while?

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That the process of death
will be a dimming, a lying

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will-less, emotionless, far
beneath whatever is going on,

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while certain and
chosen images gradually

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slow to shadow in the mind?

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If we dream, then we must
take something serious

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from the world.

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But what we dream is so often a
curiosity I can't quite place.

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I was thinking about
two friends, strangers

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to each other and equally loved.

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In my dream, they met.

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Now I would like to lie down
under a great New England oak

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to practice breathing a while.

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I believe it would signify
some things important,

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some things that have no
serious advantage in the world

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but are toys--

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sleeping, falling in love.

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