WEBVTT

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Well, I'd like to read
to you a little bit

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now from some new
work that is really

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written in prose sentences.

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This first poem begins with
the legend of the cross

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as it was painted long
ago by the painter,

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the Italian painter
Piero Della Francesca.

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He wanted to paint the story of
what had happened to the wood

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and where the wood came from
that eventually ended up

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to be the wood that
Jesus was nailed on to.

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So the poem briefly
touches on that story.

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I say briefly, I mean,
really just one stanza,

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and then fasten your
seatbelts because we're

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going to advance many, many
centuries to the present.

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And you'll end up in California.

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Actually, I hope you recognize
it's South San Francisco.

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The area just
outside of the city

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where the ballpark is where
the San Francisco Giants play

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and where the airport is.

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So I thought I'd read this
tonight because there are so

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many poets in the room.

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It's called "The Poet."

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"You would procure
the oil of forgiveness

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from the angel at the doors
and get a small branch

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for a tree that
finds no use until it

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becomes a bridge over a river.

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You have a premonition while
crossing about the wood's fate,

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and rather than step
further, cross on foot.

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The wood lies dormant for
centuries until it's dug up,

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and 3 victims die on
it, scattering the Jews.

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Unable to discern the cross
from those are the two thieves,

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you place them in
the pit of the city

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and in the early hours hold each
above your head with the third

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are brought to life
zipping between buildings

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at high speed, shifting into
5th out some disembodied ramp.

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The thrill in the air is sexual.

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The ballpark darkened, and the
holograph of the shut airport

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glowing.

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Your headlamps trained
on mall light in fog

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made more intimate and infinite
by the collapse of time.

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Cement bits swirling
your sealed space

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to the strains of violins.

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It's the end of an era.

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Time does not improve it.

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You live in a sunny place and
work in a sealed building.

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10 miles per hour on interstate
405 by the year 2000.

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The 20th century begun in
Vienna has ended in California.

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Gas meters on your left,
electric meters on your right.

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Ahead at the end of a
passage out in the light,

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a flight of concrete stairs.

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As you climb, you
see the big towers

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of the financial district 50
storeys high a few blocks away.

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The sense of entering
a city nobly,

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walking the freeway at
night before it's torn down,

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hearing Portuguese,
German, Japanese,

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French, Chinese,
seeing views of the Bay

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metallic and choppy,
and of the suspension

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bridge, and the ships.

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This is over.

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About the demolition,
a few warnings

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like those about the earthquake.

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The clerk in the streets
of Vienna, a carriage door

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slamming there, and a continuous
fountain though far away

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seem no further than
the broken freeway.

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The bells of the tower quiet,
the stone smooth and brilliant

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in moonlight.

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You are in a car with music, and
air conditioning, and a phone.

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Softly the classical
station massages you.

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In the back of your head, the
best of your creative life

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has been siphoned away
by a desire for money.

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Desire in general and money
in comparison with others.

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But between one
abstraction and another,

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you yourself
quietly and fiercely

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participate in a
disappearing place.

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One you loved and were prepared
to enter with great humility,

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bathed in tears and barefoot."

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[APPLAUSE]

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