You guys have been so great.
[LAUGHS] Thanks for listening.
Thanks for your attention.
Thanks for being here when you could be anywhere else.
This is the last poem that I'll read from this collection.
And it's the last one I'll read, period.
There are no more collections to read from.
It's the reason the book exists.
I think it's one of the best poems I've ever written.
And so I read it every time that I read.
It's got no punctuation, kind of like that Day Moon poem
with Stevie Nicks in it.
So I'm going to read it accordingly.
Do you know what a night heron is, that bird?
Yeah, it's a heron kind of in name only.
You know what I mean?
It's like a small kind of hunched bird.
Someone would have to tell you that it had the title
heron for you to believe it.
But we became obsessed with this bird.
We lived in Oakland for some years
by this lake that was kind of a bird sanctuary.
And there were pelicans and cormorants and all kinds
of gorgeous birds around.
And the one bird we fell in love with, of course,
was this little weird guy.
So he makes an appearance in the poem.
And I think for that reason it's called "Night Heron."
"What now?
You'd flown in from a Midwest city
Named for its rowdy summertime abundance
Lying saying you were coming to visit friends in San Francisco
And I'd taken the train from chilly Oakland to meet you
And we rode north carefully not touching
I took you to the tiny one-room apartment
I had escaped to after the divorce
And fried us nervously some potatoes in a cast-iron pan
A little rosemary which we did not
eat because you kissed me hard
And we went in a rush to the mattress I bought off
a guy in a semi-famous band
And had only the day before gotten off the floor
and onto the pine wood bed frame I'd found
And hoisted on my back and carried down out
of North Berkeley arms wide
Weaving through the side streets toeing the center line
to avoid snagging the buckeyes leaning out
It was about suffering in public
It was dramatic sure
But the dramas of my life those days
were pitched as high as I could stand
Higher sometimes
I said breathless I want to taste you
And you said please yes
And later out at the edge of the lake
huddled against the damp wind
Hot grease soaking through a paper bag
Licking salt from each other's fingers obscenely
A night heron peered up at us from the reeds
Small hunched dipping its shining beak in the shallows
Not particularly beautiful but a heron nevertheless
The same one we were sure we saw perched
on the awning outside the theater
Whose marquee shouted slogans like
we live in a fake democracy and prevent unwanted pregnancies
with hand-counted paper ballots
And later the cabin we rented with friends
in Calaveras snowmelt vaulting the redwoods
to magnificent heights
Drinking rye and each of us practicing our best wolf
howl at the waning moon which was ridiculous
Yes but once we started it became impossible to stop
Waking up next morning hoarse and happy
And you moved West and we lived together
in a studio overlooking the cafe dumpster
And then back East on a dream of a house and a garden
And then my father died and at almost the same age yours did
And both from drink and an unnameable sadness
I went back to Connecticut alone
3 and 1/2 days my mother said before anyone
had found him in his apartment on the far side of town
And going with my brother which we should not have done
and dragging the mattress out
And clearing the maggots off the ceiling with a shop vac
and so on
And later you came and we walked through the basement
of my mother's house
I wanted to show you where for a while he lived and how
And you slung your arm around my waist
and we moved slowly together
Bare fluorescent bulbs shining on the Budweiser ashtray
the carpentry tools I would inherit the ratty couch
he crashed on for years
You held up an old calypso record
he loved and sang out softly Jump in the line rock
your body in time
And I sang back softly OK, I believe you
And after a while mom at the top of the stairs shouting what
are you kids doing down there
And climbing the steps you pinch my elbow and ask if I'm OK
And I hear myself say yes
Which is not a lie though I'm not listening
I'm letting myself feel how astonishing
how astonishing what our love can make of a place like that"
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you so much.