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And the last group of
poems are about time--

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subject I think about a lot,
getting older in the world--

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and, I guess, problems of
remembering and forgetting.

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What should be remembered
and what should be forgotten

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and how do you keep
certain things alive?

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First one is called "The
Dream of Fair Women."

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Once, when they came
to my bed in dream,

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they came in the dark,
nameless, bodies only.

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Then they came in the
light, faces visible.

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Faces of women I could
hope to encounter soon

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if my luck changed, if
I played my cards right,

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docked on the right islands, my
face bronze from the sea sun.

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Now they come as a few
women I've known well.

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Is this a sign of the
change I'm most afraid of?

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The slow shifting
of hope to memory?

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They don't return as I
remember them, but older,

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as they might look now.

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Their foreheads lined,
dark hair crowded by gray.

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One day their youth
got up before dawn

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and left them sleeping.

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Then they woke up
serious, not mournful,

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and saw from their
window that the mainland

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they call their
home was, in fact,

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an island with a single
harbor seldom used.

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In the way station of
my bed, their hands

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gripping my shoulders, they
tell their stories saved up,

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voyage after voyage
for years, like mine.

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However I listened before, in
my dream I listen carefully.

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As I wake, the words
fade, but the tone

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lingers, which is all I need
to know what words of mine

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are true.

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[APPLAUSE]

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