I'm going to close with two very short pieces.
I must say that I'm most honored to be here today,
reading with my friend and colleague,
Steve Orlen, who, for years, for years
entertained an aesthetic argument with me
about the virtues of the narrative poem.
And we fought vigorously over this.
And of course, I was fighting for the lyric poem.
Great, great difference between the two, although they
mix happily and well.
And I'm very, very honored to know that Steve Orlen is now
writing lyric poetry, although I must confess
that I have completely abandoned the form
and he was right all along.
[LAUGHTER]
"Where are we?
Been airlifted into a remote area,
a theater of operations where everyone is a suspect?
Everything is suspect?
Or are we invited into a moment of grace
where it rains little copper bells?
Perhaps at one point, we might have been responsible for them
and been changed by them.
Our grandmother hears them now, losing her mind,
where it rains little copper bells.
How they sound, resound, sound, frightened, and rain
before they are forgotten.
The name of the mother she has forgotten is Grace.
Grandmother smiles.
She stops smiling.
The little copper bells are everything to her and are gone.
A gong, a teaspoon against a porcelain cup, a little melting
sugar cube."
"Alzheimer's Surreal Time."