Hi, everyone.
It's good to see you.
It's good to be in Tucson.
Thank you so much, Tyler, and the Poetry Center,
and ALTA including Lissie, and Kelsi, and everyone
who has worked and contributed to making these few days
happen.
I'm really excited to be here.
I'm also getting used to the resonance of this place--
maybe, it's too close.
I can adjust.
I will read some poems.
I'm going to start with some new, ant poems, which
I didn't know I would have more ant poems in my life.
But I've already written a whole book called The Ants.
And it seems definitive, but I stole that book title too
from the Pulitzer Prize winning, non-fiction book about ants.
So I joined, I infiltrated the greats just on my own.
You can confuse me.
Anyway, these ants came into my life last year.
And this first one is called "Three Ants Crawling
the Surface of the Moon are met with three humans.
The ants roll their eyes at the predictable questions
of the humans: are they making a pilgrimage?
Are they individual ants or part of a group?
Have they arrived of their own accord?
Or have they been placed there by external forces?
Is that light reflecting off of their
backs a consequence of our observational process
or something else?
Are they on a mission?
Do they have a purpose?
Are they trying to do anything specific at all?
Are they on the edge of a cliff?
Or are they on stable footing?
Are there any other creatures with them
or are they all alone?
What about gravity?
What about gravity and the three ants
crawling and wailing on the surface of the moon?
Who said anything about wailing?
Who said anything about the existence of humans?
Who said ants had enough of a spiritual bone
to go on a pilgrimage to the moon or anywhere?
Who said the ants would be a group, a group of three?
Who is to say there are exactly three ants?
What about the invisible ants?
What about the yet to arrive ants?
What about all the ants that just died yesterday?
Who said they have arrived at all?
Who feels certain that this was their destination
in the first place?
Who feels certain even of the light reflecting off
of their backs?
Who can be so sure that it's not a glint reflecting off
of something else entirely?
Who is to keep counting or not counting
as if the numbers of creatures on the moon
was a countable question?
Who said anything about a mission,
as if the ants were human or something
or as if humans were ants after all?
Who said there were edges, and cliffs, and footing on the moon
as if it was the Earth or something?
Who said gravity?
Who said weight?
Who said wailing, and crawling, and surfaces?
Damn your surfaces.
The ants, and the humans, and the surfaces
form a dissonant chorus.
They cry.
They wail.
They sing and proceed.
They hit.
They pummel.
They hurt each other.
So they say.
So they say."