So my plan, I was told--
let's see, get my watch that I can see.
So a little background, my mother died three weeks ago.
So I'm a little fragile for it.
But I got strength as soon as I got here.
It was hard to be at their house across town.
But as soon as I got into the little poetry cottage,
I got strength.
And so I put together a 39 minute reading.
So our friend Seamus Heaney and Marie Heaney used to say,
there's no such thing as a short poetry
reading or a tall whiskey.
I hope I come in a little under time.
But I wanted to start by reading the poem on the broadside,
which is in the new book: Concerning
the Meaning Molecule in Poetry.
Long ago, a man told me if you write poetry,
keep your subjects small.
I was a tiny skinny girl at that point.
Much later, I heard a meaning molecule in the call of a dove,
pretending to be an owl in the pine.
A song speck circling in a thought
throughout all time, like the man said, extremely small.
Traveling from before literature through the blue centuries,
Until quite recently when a radiant instance of the unknown
paused our bafflement but kept that little meaning absolutely
elusive and erotic.
I think that meaning is sort of sexy,
[LAUGHTER]
But it's not really available.
[LAUGHTER]
It's like falling in love with a priest or something.