WEBVTT

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[APPLAUSE]

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Thank you all very much.

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Now, can all of
you behind me hear?

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No.

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Oh, OK.

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Can all of you
behind me now hear?

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Yes.

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So if I'm facing into
the mic you can hear me,

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if I'm looking at you
can't hear me, right?

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[LAUGHTER] This is one
of life's awful choices,

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because I hate not to look at
the people that I'm reading to.

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But every now and then I'm just
going to swing around and look

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at you, so.

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And you on this side too.

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I also want to lend a
voice to urge all of you

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to look closely at
the flyers that you've

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been handed out here to
help save the Poetry Center.

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I have very personal
sentimental-- no,

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maybe not sentimental--
just personal and very deep

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associations with staying
at the Poetry Center,

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working on collecting my poems
into the first selected poems

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that I published and doing a lot
of reading and thinking there,

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a long time ago, and I
think it was around 1973.

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And so many poets,
so many writers,

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have had that opportunity,
and the library

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as a resource next door has
been an incredible asset to just

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the little house
which somehow has

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been so conducive to writing
and thinking and reading.

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So, I, from this very
personal point of view,

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want to urge you to see
what you can do to save it

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and to make it possible
for Lois and her staff

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to carry on the
magnificent work they've

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been doing all these years.

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[APPLAUSE]

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I'm going to read
a couple of poems--

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one short poem,
one longer poem--

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from Your Native Land,
Your Life, my last book.

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And then everything
else I'm going to read

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is from a book that's coming
out in May called, Time's Power.

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"Homage to Winter."

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About almost five
years ago I moved

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across the country from the
Northeast to California.

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And that was a hard
personal choice.

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It has turned out to be
a wonderful decision,

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but I think a lot of
the tugs and pulls

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and conflicts in that choice are
reflected in this poem, "Homage

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to Winter."

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You, a woman, too old for
passive contemplation,

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caught staring out a window at
bird of paradise spikes jeweled

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with rain across an alley.

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It's winter in this
land of roses, roses.

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Sometimes the fog lies thicker
around you than your past.

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Sometimes the Pacific radiance
scours the air to lapis.

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In this new world
you feel backward

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along the hem of your whole
life, questioning every breath.

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Nights, you can watch the
moon shed skin after skin,

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over and over, always a shape
of imbalance except at birth

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and in the full.

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You, still trying to
learn how to live,

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what must be done, though in
death you will be complete

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whatever you do.

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But death is not the answer.

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On these flat green
leaves, light skates

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like a golden blade.

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High in the dull green pine
sit two mushroom-colored doves.

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Afterglow overflows across the
bungalow roof between the signs

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for the three-way stop.

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Over everything that
is the cotton pants

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stirring on the line.

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The empty coke can by the fence
onto the still, unflowering,

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mysterious acacia, and a
sudden chill takes the air.

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Backward you dream to a porch
you stood on a year ago.

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Snow flying quick
as thought, sticking

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to your shoulder, gone.

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Blue shadows ridged and
fading on a snow swept road.

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The shortest day of the year.

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Backward you dream to glare
ice and ice wet pussy willows.

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To riverside drive, the wind
cut loose from Hudson's Bay,

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driving tatters into your face.

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And back you come
at last to that room

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without a view
where webs of frost

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blinded the panes at
noon where already you

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had begun to make the visible
world your conscience,

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asking things, what
can you tell me?

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What am I doing?

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What must I do?

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