OK, I'll read one last poem, and thank you all for coming.
This poem is also called "Corruption,"
and it begins with a line from Simone Weil.
"Corruption."
"In one of Grimm's stories, a little tailor
defeats a giant in a throwing contest
by lofting a bird in the air.
Happily ever after arrives, but the bird never lands.
She flies straight out of the tale.
Tonight, a vessel catapults to the heavens
with a gold plated phonograph fixed to its side.
In less than 40,000 years, this craft
will drift through the nearest system, bearing greetings in 57
languages, including the encoded song of the humpback whale.
By then, our tongue will have crossed into extinction
or changed utterly.
Lately, I've taken an interest in words, like here.
Here was a chapel, for instance.
Here is a footprint filling with rain.
Here might be enough.
Cannot the same be said of elsewhere?
Yes, I suppose.
But I know precious little of elsewhere."
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]