Page 19.
OK, I'm keeping an eye on the time.
They call the times yet?
Somebody has.
I'm going on too long.
Is that-- does that mean I've read too long?
I mean, I can stop.
Go ahead.
OK.
All right, well this is a poem about somebody
who is looking in the family Bible.
I don't know if any of your families
used to have family bibles, but they
used to write the births, and the deaths,
and the marriages inside the flyleaf of the family Bible.
And they kept pictures of the family in there,
and this guy is looking through the family Bible one day,
and he finds this list of names.
And he realizes that it's the list of names
that his mother wrote down when she was pregnant with him.
And so he looks at this list of names
and he says, well, instead of the name I have,
I could have been named these other people,
these other names.
A different name creates a different person, if you will.
And so this is a poem about that, when I wrote this poem,
I tried to write it normally, in a normal manner,
but it just would not do it.
[LAUGHTER]
And so I wrote it this way.
It's called "My Mother's List of Names."
"My mother's list of names today I take it in my hand
and I read the places she underlined William and Ann.
The others are my brothers and sisters,
I know I'm going to see them when I'm fully grown.
Yes, they're waiting for me to join em and I will.
Just over the top of some great big hill
lies a green valley where their shouts of joy are fellowing,
save all but one can be seen there next a kin.
And a link is missing from their ringarosey dance.
Think of the names she wrote down,
not just by chance, when she learned that a baby inside her
was growing small.
She placed that list inside the family Bible, then I was born
and she died soon after, and I grew up
sinful of questions I could not ask her.
I did not know that she had left me the answer,
pressed between the holy pages with the happy laughter
of John, Rudolph, Frank, Arthur, Paul, Pauline, Martha, Ann,
Doris, Susan, you all.
I did not even know you were alive,
till I read the Bible today for the first time in my life,
and I found this list of names that might have been my own.
You other me's--
You other me's on the bright side of my moon,
Mother and Daddy too have joined you in play,
and I am coming to complete the circle of your day.
I was a lonely child, I never understood
that you were waiting for me to find the truth and know.
And I'll make this one promise you
want me to, I'm going to continue my Bible study,
till I'm back inside the Body with you.
And at that point, the Carter family usually goes, Amen.
But they're touring with Johnny Cash this week,
couldn't get them.
OK, I can see I'm going to have to skip, skip, skip.