WEBVTT

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The last poem I'll read
is from a photograph.

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I'm kind of like Steve Orlen.

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I guess like my
family seems to just

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have photographs that go back
around 300 years, I guess,

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before they even invented it.

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Anyway, I'm also, and this
was rather startling, almost

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shocking is I guess my family,
great grandparents' side,

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were Quakers, and
then I even have

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one that was a circuit rider,
so that must be why I went

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into teaching or something.

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And this is told as if I am a
mother talking to her daughter.

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The photograph is actually
from my great grandparents,

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but that would be too confusing
of great grandparents, so.

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Waiting in the Stream.

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Holbrook, Kansas.

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In this sepia circa 1913
of seven Quaker women

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in wide garden hats,
tucked blouses,

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and long, gray dresses,
my mother in the middle

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tilts her head to the
right, smiles straight

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into the camera.

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My father on the bank tries
not to drop the plate nor stare

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at my mother's ankles.

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After the picture,
he knows she'll

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keep her dress pulled
up, giggle, glance down

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into the water, her
dress and white blouse

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rippling in the stream.

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She'll think how shy he
is with his tie crooked,

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his pants too small.

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He'll look at her red hair
and, oh, those ankles, then

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remember how they met in
church, her head tilted,

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looking away from her father, a
minister, the sunlight kissing

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the awkward bench where she sat.

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How he wanted to be near
her, touch the rough wood,

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and sing a river
of silent hymns.

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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The next poet is Greg Pape.