This poem is called "The Joy and Agony of Improvisation."
There, the moon, just appearing over dark pine, heavy
and round, the color of old parchment.
And indeed, it seems archaic.
What does it mean in our histories-- yours and mine--
except a myth no longer altogether necessary,
a theorem proven in another millennia?
This is a peculiar night--
uncomfortable.
While it is like most moments of the present, it doesn't fit us.
The low night wind shifting directionless
moves the pine boughs as if, so you say,
we were in the midst of voices in some obscure contention.
Of course we are.
But not obscure, only fruitless, stupid, and very dangerous.
Come, let's go in the tent and sleep.
Later, we waken, knowing the night has changed.
It's a high wind now.
Strange how the voices have turned to song.
Hear it rising, rising, then breaking, then rising again,
and breaking again.
Oh, something is unutterable.
The song cannot reach it.
Yet, we know it.
Know what we cannot hear.
Out on the night's great circle, the circle
of consciousness with its far rim always hidden.
There where suffering and joy meet and combine
the inexpressible.
How the song is striving and how beautifully failing.
The measure of beauty beyond plentitude, never but always
enough.
Come outside again, under tossing
pines in the racing clouds.
This is more than we could ever have meant in our kiss.
It is the gathering of our love into all love,
into that suffering and joy.
And see, up there in the sky, uncovered now as the clouds
stream away, the moon.
So new, so clean, and high, and bright, and true."
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.