WEBVTT

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You guys have been so great.

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[LAUGHS] Thanks for listening.

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Thanks for your attention.

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Thanks for being here when
you could be anywhere else.

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This is the last poem that
I'll read from this collection.

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And it's the last one
I'll read, period.

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There are no more
collections to read from.

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It's the reason the book exists.

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I think it's one of the best
poems I've ever written.

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And so I read it every
time that I read.

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It's got no punctuation, kind
of like that Day Moon poem

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with Stevie Nicks in it.

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So I'm going to
read it accordingly.

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Do you know what a night
heron is, that bird?

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Yeah, it's a heron
kind of in name only.

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You know what I mean?

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It's like a small
kind of hunched bird.

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Someone would have to tell
you that it had the title

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heron for you to believe it.

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But we became obsessed
with this bird.

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We lived in Oakland
for some years

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by this lake that was
kind of a bird sanctuary.

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And there were pelicans and
cormorants and all kinds

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of gorgeous birds around.

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And the one bird we fell
in love with, of course,

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was this little weird guy.

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So he makes an
appearance in the poem.

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And I think for that reason
it's called "Night Heron."

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"What now?

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You'd flown in
from a Midwest city

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Named for its rowdy
summertime abundance

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Lying saying you were coming to
visit friends in San Francisco

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And I'd taken the train from
chilly Oakland to meet you

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And we rode north
carefully not touching

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I took you to the tiny
one-room apartment

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I had escaped to
after the divorce

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And fried us nervously some
potatoes in a cast-iron pan

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A little rosemary
which we did not

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eat because you kissed me hard

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And we went in a rush to
the mattress I bought off

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a guy in a semi-famous band

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And had only the day
before gotten off the floor

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and onto the pine wood
bed frame I'd found

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And hoisted on my back
and carried down out

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of North Berkeley arms wide

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Weaving through the side
streets toeing the center line

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to avoid snagging the
buckeyes leaning out

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It was about suffering in public

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It was dramatic sure

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But the dramas of
my life those days

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were pitched as high
as I could stand

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Higher sometimes

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I said breathless
I want to taste you

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And you said please yes

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And later out at
the edge of the lake

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huddled against the damp wind

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Hot grease soaking
through a paper bag

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Licking salt from each
other's fingers obscenely

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A night heron peered
up at us from the reeds

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Small hunched dipping its
shining beak in the shallows

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Not particularly beautiful
but a heron nevertheless

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The same one we were
sure we saw perched

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on the awning
outside the theater

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Whose marquee
shouted slogans like

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we live in a fake democracy and
prevent unwanted pregnancies

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with hand-counted paper ballots

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And later the cabin
we rented with friends

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in Calaveras snowmelt
vaulting the redwoods

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to magnificent heights

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Drinking rye and each of
us practicing our best wolf

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howl at the waning moon
which was ridiculous

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Yes but once we started it
became impossible to stop

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Waking up next morning
hoarse and happy

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And you moved West
and we lived together

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in a studio overlooking
the cafe dumpster

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And then back East on a
dream of a house and a garden

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And then my father died and at
almost the same age yours did

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And both from drink and
an unnameable sadness

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I went back to Connecticut alone

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3 and 1/2 days my mother
said before anyone

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had found him in his apartment
on the far side of town

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And going with my brother
which we should not have done

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and dragging the mattress out

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And clearing the maggots off
the ceiling with a shop vac

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and so on

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And later you came and we
walked through the basement

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of my mother's house

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I wanted to show you where
for a while he lived and how

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And you slung your
arm around my waist

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and we moved slowly together

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Bare fluorescent bulbs shining
on the Budweiser ashtray

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the carpentry tools I would
inherit the ratty couch

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he crashed on for years

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You held up an
old calypso record

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he loved and sang out
softly Jump in the line rock

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your body in time

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And I sang back softly
OK, I believe you

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And after a while mom at the
top of the stairs shouting what

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are you kids doing down there

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And climbing the steps you
pinch my elbow and ask if I'm OK

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And I hear myself say yes

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Which is not a lie
though I'm not listening

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I'm letting myself
feel how astonishing

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how astonishing what our love
can make of a place like that"

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[APPLAUSE]

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Thank you so much.

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