And next to last, the penultimate poem.
Since we are here in the Southwest perhaps I,
almost by obligation, should read
you a poem about Navajo rugs.
Behind my house is not a Navajo church, a Mormon church.
And I've got scads and scads of poems about Mormons.
Although, I don't know very much about them.
It's only what I pick up across the alley
as they go into dances and playing basketball and things.
But as you know, if you may be a member of the Mormon church,
they're pretty clean-living folk.
And they go to bed early.
And sometimes I feel guilty when, at 10 o'clock,
all the light lights go off and the noises stop.
And I'm still going.
So this is called Navajo Rug.
At 10 o'clock sharp, the Mormons stop singing.
We hear them slapping together their folding chairs,
rushing home to practice behind closed lids what
they'll sing again tomorrow morning in saving daylight.
I throw more twigs into the beehive mouth of fire,
waltz around with a bottle of wine.
For the next few hours, we play checkers, pick-up sticks,
retelling our common stories until, deep
in the morning, those suns, blurred
notes, yellow lozenges begin dancing goat-like
across the Navajo rug I bought years
ago up in Tuba City from an [INAUDIBLE] medicine man.
Preview of sleep, of other things coming at us tomorrow,
clothed in daylight.