OK.
A lot of figs tonight.
[LAUGHTER]
This is-- I tricked you.
I'm going to do that a minute.
You know what?
This is called--
I don't read this poem out loud too often.
I don't know why.
It's called "Becoming a Horse."
This is about the first horse that I met, really met,
became friends with.
"Becoming a Horse".
"It was dragging my hands along its belly, loosing the bit
and wiping the spit from its mouth
made me a snatch of grass in the thing's maw, a fly tasting
its ear.
It was touching my nose to its made me know the clover's
bloom, my wet eye to his made me know the long field secrets.
But it was putting my heart to the horse's
that made me know the sorrow of horses,
the sorrow of a brook creasing the field.
The maggot turning in its corpse made
me forsake my thumbs for the sheen of unshod hooves.
And in this way drop my torches.
And in this way drop my knives.
And feel the small song in my chest swell and my coat glisten
and twitch.
And my face grow long.
And these words cast off, at last,
for the slow honest tongue of horses.