Thank you, Lois.
I feel intimidated tonight because just before I
came to Tucson, we were at a poetry reading
given by Robert Pinsky.
And someone afterwards asked him to justify poetry readings, why
he gave them, because the person who asked
said that it was too difficult to understand poetry
when you just listen to it.
And he agreed.
And so I am very much under the influence of that.
[LAUGHING]
The poet who asked-- the person who asked it
was a poet herself.
Well, nevertheless, I'd like to start with the poem called
"Naming The Animals."
This is what Adam is supposed to have done as you know,
giving names to all the animals.
"Until he named the horse, horse,
hooves left no prints on the earth.
Manes had not been invented.
Swiftness and grace were not married.
Until he named the cow, cow, no one slept standing up.
No one saw through opaque eyes.
Food was chewed only once.
Only after he named the fish, fish
did the light put on skins of yellow and silver oil,
revealing itself as a dancer and high jump
champion of the world, just as later he
had to name the woman love before he
could put on the knowledge of who
she was with her small hands."