I wanted to tell you just one thing about form.
Because my forms are very different in lots of my poems.
And this poem has two stanzas of 12 lines each.
I'm dedicating this to Cynthia Hogue, a brilliant poet,
and a wonderful person who I was talking to about this poem
and also dedicating it to the students that are here.
It was written for my students.
"Poem While The Power Was Out"
Hot winds settled East of here,
The blurred silences began,
Stripes of the nuthatch stayed
When the nuthatch flew off.
And though you felt the sunlight might bring harm,
An odd forgiveness entered the suburbs,
Where, like the dog in childhood,
You drew comfort from the floor.
The adults seem baffled, wondering what to do next.
Shouldn't they know?
You sat quite still, and still, all the way up your spine.
Reason had hung its unreasonable lights.
OK, then.
You were supposed to remain strong,
You knew this, you were supposed not to worry.
Once you were strong,
The rare historical voices moved aside
so you could be different.
Now afternoon was dark.
So how to tell which ones were real?
They pressed along through massive centuries.
What do you need?
What shall we do now?
They kept asking you, their ideal.
During the power outages, I would have my students take out
their phones.
And we would just read poems on the phone.
Or they would write poems on the phone.
And we would just sit there in the dark and talk about poetry
or just interview each other and because California
had a couple of rough years.