Now for those of you who are students,
I want to read you an exotic poem.
It's the last poem of a land that to you seems far away.
It's called "Getting Old."
And it's not brave.
It's not brave and heroic and adult about being old.
And it's not peppy like Ruth Gordon.
[LAUGHTER]
It gives me the willies.
[LAUGHTER]
That's how my mother died at 90, and she was walking a little--
boards over a creak, saying, "Any place a rat can get,
I can get."
[LAUGHTER]
This, in a way, like what I tried to say about the--
and so it's-- Ko-chan means "little girl," which is nice.
Japanese don't have many diminutive affectionate terms.
That's one of the few that I know that they have.
Ko means "girl."
"Getting Old."
I'm living all alone up in the mountain.
The soft wind comes sweet in the night on the mountain.
Invisible except for the sound it
makes in the big poplars outside and the feel
on his naked, single body, which breathes quietly a little
before dawn, eyes open and in love
with the table and chair in the transparent dark
and stars in the other window.
Soon it will be time for the first tea
and cool pear and then the climb 10 miles down and up
the mountain.
"Old and alone," he thinks, smiling.
Missing her and her, and knowing the future is shortening.
He could hear the stream faintly and the birds beginning,
full of what abundance has done to his spirit.
Feeling around inside to see if his heart is still,
thank God, ambitious.
The way old men look in their eyes each morning
or feel their back.
Knowing she isn't there and how much Michiko isn't anywhere.
The eyes close as he remembers seeing the big owl
on the roof last night for the first time
after hearing it for months.
Thinking how much he has grown unsuited for love
the size it is for him.
"But maybe not," he says.
And the eyes open as he grins at the heart's
stubborn pretending.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]