Well, I'd like to end with a little passage
about the birth of a baby.
"A black bear sits alone in the twilight,
nodding from side to side, turning slowly
around and around on himself, scuffing the four footed circle
into the earth.
He sniffs the sweat in the breeze.
He understands a creature, a death creature,
watches from the fringe of the trees.
Finally, he understands, I am no longer here.
He himself, from the fringe of the trees,
watches a black bear get up, eat a few flowers, trudge away,
all his fur glistening in the rain, and what glistening.
Sancho Fergus, my boy child, had such great shoulders.
When he was born, his head came out, the rest of him stuck.
And he opened his eyes, his head out there,
all alone in the room, he squinted
with pained, barely unglued eyes at the ninth month's blood
splashing beneath him on the floor and almost smiled,
I thought, almost forgave it all in advance.
And when he came wholly forth, I took him up in my hands,
and bent over and smelled the black, glistening fur
of his head, as empty space must have
bent over the newborn planet, and smelled
the grasslands and the ferns."
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]