I was a grad student at Cornell, where
I studied with poet AR Ammons.
And we used to hang out in the hallways,
swapping our latest marvels from science.
And I decided finally that I would
write a poem that would give a sense of the conversations
that we would have that's absolutely authentic.
It's called "AR Ammons Amid the Fungi."
"You say, segmented worms roll back their saddles
during copulation.
And I say, yes, and pine bristles like a boar's back.
And you say, red capped fungi will fabric the spring.
And I say, yes, and woodchucks in hibernation
are breathing only 10 times an hour.
And you say shape and form and saliences.
And I say verbal pliés, acoustic fatigue.
And do you read lodestars and cereal boxes?
And you say, yes, and navigation manuals, placemats,
and hurricane charts.
I say, do you mind that it's colder than a polar bear's
menses or that a cat in a black hole in space becomes linguine?
I say, did you know that from Rimbaud you
get barium and radium, bim, bram, mab, braid, drum, dram,
daub, raid?
You say, yes, and also bird and Brad, Baird and Mau
and Ra and Maud.
And axolotl is also good.
Have you tried vineyard yet?
And I say, yes, but that pockmarked aluminum
prop that we call a moon answers directly to mission control.
You say, that trollop's on a tether of Tang.
She put the rill in Rilke, you know what I mean?
I say, yes, a bone knits and a river purls.
And I've always admired your Southern kraal.
And you say, jejune and knee deep in the magma.
And I say, this is not the Hebrew letter for Jehovah.
And you say, one thing about death--
it's hereditary.
And I say, where the hell are we,
and incidentally, how the hell is it here?
Isn't a friend someone to tread water with?
And you say, the asylum of idle chatter is wide open."
[APPLAUSE]