This is my first time at the University of Arizona.
But Arizona is an old story for me in many ways.
Since 1925, it's a part of the country--
the Southwest-- it has captured my imagination long, long ago.
And I've seen it a number of times--
but never enough and never completely.
And I'm very grateful to be invited here tonight.
And I thank you all, and thank you for your presence.
I'm going to read some poems more
or less in the chronological order of composition--
but not necessarily that.
I'm not going back to old, old poems
that I'm so tired of looking at.
[LAUGHTER]
But much more recent poems than those tired old poems.
With little comment.
I don't think the poems will live or die by my comment.
So I trust them to your generosity.
[LAUGHTER]
This is called Little Boy and Lost Shoe.
The little boy lost his shoe in the field.
Home he hobbled, not caring, with a stick whipping
goldenrod.
Go find that shoe right now.
I mean it.
And he went, not now singing, though the field was big.
Under the sky he walked.
And the sky was big.
Sunlight touched the goldenrod and yellowed his hair.
But the sun was low now.
And oh, he should know.
He must hurry to find that shoe or the sun will be down.
Oh hurry boy, for the grass will be tall as the tree.
Hurry, for the moon has bled, though not with a heart,
as pity.
Hurry, for time is money.
And the sun is low.
Yes, damn it, hurry.
For shoes cost money, you know.
I don't know why you dawdle and do not hurry.
The mountains are leaning their heads together to watch.
How dilatory can a boy be, I ask you?
Off in Wyoming, the mountains lean.
They watch.
They know.