WEBVTT

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Now, since I've read a poem for
my wife and a poem for my son,

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I'm going to read
one for myself.

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You do that.

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It's sort of a autobiographical
poem, I suppose.

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The occasion for it was a number
of years ago, a few years ago,

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I got a letter from somebody
in my high school graduating

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class, which was
about 1888, I think.

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And I don't know
who this woman was,

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but it was one of
those form letters

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and they fill in your
name, and it said,

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it wanted me to come to a
reunion, the 100th, I think.

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And it said, Dear,
and it was filled in,

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dear Richard Shelton,
whatever became of you?

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The tone was very breezy.

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And it made me wonder what had.

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I wasn't really sure.

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So I thought about
it a good deal.

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And out of that came this poem.

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And it is called,
"Whatever Became of Me."

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Because the moon comes
straight up from the mountain,

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like the hidden possibility of
madness escaped for everyone

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to see, and the
wandering stars, who

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are said to rule our lives
wander on in darkness,

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I feel the need to lie down
among the stones and caress

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any of them who have survived.

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I always looked for what I
wanted in the wrong places,

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until the desert taught
me to want what I found.

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Now, on summer nights,
I sit in the garden,

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where it is hot and dry, and
young stones grow like weeds.

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When the moon turns a
mad white face upon me,

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having nothing to offer,
I hold up my empty hands.

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It is so easy to be happy.

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This morning, a woodpecker woke
me, practicing on his drum.

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And all afternoon, cicadas
rang like the telephones

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I haven't answered.

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I am what has
become of me, a man

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who lives in the
desert, where coyotes

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wail more skillfully
than hired mourners

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at the funeral of
an Eastern King.

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Where every night the
stars, whose light

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I have not earned and
will never deserve,

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return as if to keep a promise.

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And even the rain, when
it falls, is coming home.

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