This is a poem called "Elegy."
And "Elegy" takes place on that old mountain road, where
those goats swing by and--
it's a poem written in a very abstract language.
I mean, a kind of very cool, no fancy imagery, epistemological,
phenomenological.
What it is is that two people are--
well, let me kind of tell most of this in the poem.
But it's outdoors, and two people have decided to eat--
have a meal outside.
And they're sitting.
And then they-- it's kind of late summer.
It's gotten cool-- [AUDIO OUT] in New England.
Summers can get pretty cold, late August,
some of the evenings.
And they'd gotten drunk in the--
slowly.
It had gotten very dark, and they
should go back to the house, and turn on some lights.
But then they're just sort of sitting there at a table.
And pretty soon they're sitting in the complete darkness,
at this table.
Anyway, and there is a house-- this dark house there.
So that's the kind of a scene.
And so the one who is speaking is the one
who is using this language, trying
to understand the situation and puzzle it out.
And it's called "Elegy."
"Note, as it gets darker, that little
can be ascertained of the particulars,
and of their true magnitudes.
Note the increasing unreliability of vision.
The one thing may appear more or less familiar than other.
Disengaged from references, they are in the deepening gloom.
Nothing to do but sit and abide, depending
on memory to provide the vague outline, the theory of where
we are tonight, and why we can see so little of each other,
and soon will be even less able.
In the starless summer night, windy and cold, at a table
brought out hours ago, under a huge ash tree.
Two chairs.
Two ambiguous figures, each one relying on the other
to remain faithful, now that one can leave without the other one
knowing.
[LAUGHTER] This slate, in what only recently was a garden,
a festive occasion elaborately planned for two lovers,
in the open air, at the end of a dead end road rarely traveled.
All of--