Well it's a pleasure to be here.
And I don't always say that.
I'll read one poem from The Forces of Plenty.
This poem is called "The Diviner."
A diviner is a water witch, someone who can find water.
I just came from a couple of days in Texas.
So it occurred to me to read this poem.
Oh, if you don't have children or haven't been around them
for a while, you might need to know
that the fontanelle is the soft spot on the baby's head.
"The Diviner."
"The danger surfaced in the fontanelle.
I held your head on my arm, whispering lullabies
into your sweet, hot neck.
By the second week, that was forbidden.
Then you swam alone on your white sheet, robed, masked.
I put my face as close as I could
get it to see what the sickness pulsed and signaled.
When I was little, my father used
to light a Lucky and blow warm smoke like a secret
into my sore ear.
I was amazed.
It never escaped through the other ear
nor any orifice mother peered into
to be housing the breath of my father.
Now you are growing and closing everywhere against me.
The melded hemispheres of bone have sealed my small window
as I pace the dry ground with my wand,
trying to hold the stick without bias,
trying to learn what the surface will not
tell until the green wood plunges,
nearly twists from my grip.
There's water here.
But how much and how deep?"