And a last poem entitled "Winter Light."
Not much you have to know about this.
I have an affection for this poem
because the poem is, I think, trying
to tell me how I should live.
That's all I can do, is tell myself.
One thing that's mentioned in it,
in case you're not familiar with it, not a baseball fan
or whatever, Clyde Sukeforth was the scout who
signed Jackie Robinson, who was the first Black player
to play in the major leagues, I think around 1948.
Poem begins a little bit abstractly
and then goes into childhood things.
"The curious, compelling way in which the light was sourceless,
not so much dimming as withdrawing.
From the white houses, their minute
flakes of white paint in that light
giving them the rough appearance of reality,
something to be stored and remembered.
No, I couldn't have seen that, walking home
from school in rubber boots.
I had a pencil box, a neat little representation
of the great official world.
My principal was Mr. Sukeforth, brother
of the man who signed Jackie Robinson in another life
just after the war.
When I asked him, he just beamed.
So now I remember that people also are a source of light.
And now that all that litter of people and things
was what I loved, but taught myself too well,
and for no reason, to forget.
Is it possible that we will remember a while
that the process of death will be a dimming, a lying
will-less, emotionless, far beneath whatever is going on,
while certain unchosen images gradually
slow to shadow in the mind?
If we dream, then we must take something serious
from the world.
But what we dream is so often a curiosity we can't quite place.
I was thinking about two friends,
strangers to each other, and greatly loved.
In my dream they met.
Now I would like to lie down under a great New England oak
to practice remembrance a while.
I believe it would signify some things important,
some things that have no serious advantage in the world,
but are toys--
sleeping, falling in love, so long."
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
You feeling OK?
Yeah.
I felt a little like an alien while I was reading,
but I knew that I was going to, so it didn't bother me at all.
[SIDE CONVERSATION]