So many people last week asked me
if I was nervous about reading.
And I am.
When you're a poet, unlike most sports,
you tend to lose the home games.
Too many people know you for who you are.
So I suffered a crisis of confidence.
And I almost literally thought of doing the things that
would normally be done by Lois for me to myself or for myself.
Like go out to the airport and meet myself,
and talk about how lovely the weather
here is compared with Saskatchewan
or wherever I come from.
And make the rounds at the Desert Museum
where they have a plaque below us on the wall,
1001 poets pass through.
Go to Old Peking and be sorry about how much ginger
is in the food.
And buy half a gallon of bourbon and take
a little nap in the Poetry Center
before the [CHUCKLES] reading.
And then begin the reading by saying
this is, of course, the official poetry reading of the 1984
Winter Olympics.
But, instead, we were getting our sumptuous meal of pizza
before the reading.
My son went down--
he's on University-- to Zips to play video games.
When we went down to pick him up,
I saw what I needed down there, a friend, so I brought him.
[LAUGHTER]
Right?
The problem is one of familiarity
when you really get home so--
isn't this a great prop?
When you go to-- this is Bruce Cohen, a former MFA student.
When you go into Zips, tell them Eddie sent you, OK?
They were nice enough to loan this to me.
In about three weeks I'm going east to do readings.
And I thought, wouldn't it be nice to have
a prop for the reading?
Wouldn't it be nice to bring this along?
Because, as I was bringing this down from my office upstairs,
when I walked in, even though I knew it was there,
it scared the hell out of me in my darkened office.
I immediately said, hi, bro.
I noticed it has this little flap in it.
Now what it's for?
I don't know.
But this would come in handy for different cities.
This is like reading in New York or San Francisco.
[LAUGHTER]
Now I can't, I can't.
The Milky Way.
When I was a boy, the Milky Way floated just
over the city of Boston, so I was
lucky to live in that place, that house where
my father lathered his face and like the moon went out,
came back, walking winter nights beneath the Milky Way.
A few thoughts, few fears, a way of sleeping through the night.
When my son lay sewn to the sheets, adrift
in his diabetic coma among the blown, seductive stars,
I could not think of anything to say,
for he was not anywhere nearby.
He said papa and came back.
Tonight, in his play, he captains a sleek starship
toward the Milky Way.
When I was a boy, the city of Boston
lay miles away within our sight.
Evenings, we set our chairs upon the lawn and talked.
Few thoughts, a way of watching until dark.
Then as our small wickers floated through the night,
I wished I might be taken away to live forever
in that distant city made wholly of light.