All right.
One last more, and then and I can step aside, hydrate,
wipe some sweat off.
One of the things that's so tricky about doing
so much of this work is its weight and how much it takes--
and takes from us as readers, as archivists, as researchers,
as humans trying to exist in this world.
It's not easy.
So I thought about ending tonight
with that poem from Juan Felipe and also
the title poem from my book.
I always think about how we can save a little for ourselves
to have that fight, that energy for tomorrow.
Thank you so much.
It's an honor to be here with you all.
"Borderland Apocrypha."
Also, before I start, it's also an honor
to be here alongside my life-long partner, Mai Der.
I love you.
"If your father tells you, and your teacher tells you,
and the pastor at your family's church
tells you to perceive breath for existing, heart for source,
grave as final voices, kingdom and the shaking
as the escape of the Earth's heat,
you believe the repetition.
But don't.
Believe that earthquakes are fed by the buried, shoulders
leaning in and sinewed by the unseen, combative to covert.
Recall that beneath you nothing is still.
Recall that beneath you are the others.
Know there is no such thing as living.
Living is a birth to control you,
to fear no longer being present, to fear "this,"
whatever your "this" is.
It can leave you, the night's knuckle on your door
is not consent, but a decay of the ego,
unheard, a nearness unknown until an apnea arrives,
tearing you from bed for the noose,
the blade, the bullet, the fingers forcing the larynx.
You were never living.
Your father will tell you.
The priest and prophet and the succulent on the windowsill
will not stop you and say, you are not living.
You're present.
Some tomorrow there'll be no sunrise,
and none will say, where is, where is, where is.
They will believe you are no longer.
Your blood will mourn.
The other will gather to publicly demonstrate
life is proprietary.
Do not listen.
Join the present at the tectonic and continue to be.
Push.
Press your ears against the mantle
to hear the sound of the pavement rupture.
Push.
The city will not sleep.
Push.
The flora, fauna, stone nod.
You have always been present.
Push.
A valley is quiet, whether cradling or calling.
Push.
The television, the paper will say the fault is active.
Push.
The scientist will diagram the Earth halved
and demonstrate why nothing remains static.
Push.
The present remain here.
Push.
Here.
Push.
Here.
Push.
Leave.
Return.
You exist.
Push.
You are present.
Push.
Swallow them into quiet."
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]