I daresay that some of you, perhaps many of you
heard James Wright read.
This poem is a memorial poem for him.
And it was written some months after his death
while I was crossing the country by train on Amtrak.
And it's called "Presence."
"Sunlight in Ohio touching frostbitten stubblefields
and the cabbagy yards, strewn with rusting downhill racers
and abandoned rabbit hutches, of small frame houses
near the railroad.
The spirit of Jim Wright is strong here, so strong
it comes through into the train through the thick pane.
The sun's light hands touch the land blindly,
careful to memorize plains and expressive inclinations.
It fingers the scrapyard, the siloed farm, the school bus,
the windowless plant, and the men going in for the day shift.
Jim can't speak anymore, he's dead,
but I swear he's here making me look,
he's here angry and loving and full of signs.
He's in this landscape where industry strangles uncertainly
out into farmland and farmland shrinks and looks gray.
He's the kid skillfully spinning a beat up bike wheel
along and along down the road that
leads straight, straight, straight
to the edge of the world."
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.