Thank you.
Thank you all so much for being here.
It's really a delight to look at you
from this side of the podium and just to be here
to celebrate Terrain.
Thank you so much, Simmons, for that introduction
and also just for the work.
Everyone involved with Terrain, it's
really a remarkable magazine.
And it's a delight to get to celebrate them with you.
I'll start tonight with one poem from my first book,
which is Pennsylvania Furnace.
And it's the last poem in the book,
titled "Self-Portrait with Tucson."
And it opens with a quote from a poem
by Ofelia Zepeda, who you can hear here later this spring
on April 4th, April 6th.
April 4th.
And the quote is, "This is the way we begin and end things."
And the final line of the poem references her as well.
So this is "Self-Portrait with Tucson."
One day, I saw the mountain of God descending
across the valley.
Sunlight alive in the body of snow stepping
through the veins of Ponderosa and granite,
cracking the air balanced between.
Valley in my mouth when I mean city.
When I should say brick, tile, wash with abandoned couch.
Ocean always just beyond sight.
Power lines crossing between that mountain and me.
You should know I am a woman who believes in visions,
uncurtained glass after sunset, a mirror
and the cold vast ceilings it harbors,
certainty of memory that wakes me in the salt
light before daybreak.
By the road, a man shapes circles
that connect mouth and stomach.
Prophets' unwashed hair and empty bag.
We are not coming to a mountain of fear, but a mountain of joy,
a place sweet and yellow as San Javier watermelon.
I did not know myself when I returned home
from my long journey.
Sometimes, I see the Lord's mountain electric
pink and close in the rear view.
And I know there is still a little bit of night left in me.