When Alison came to pick me up this evening,
it was just at sunset, and the sky was very beautiful,
and there was a very bright wonderful star.
And so I think I'll read this poem, which has a star in it.
There are three italicized words in this poem, "oh bright star,"
and those are actually an allusion to the poem by Keats
which begins, "Bright star, would I
were stedfast as thou art."
The poem's called, "Namings."
"Three hours wholly absorbed, trying
to identify one rain-soaked, worm ridden
mushroom, and the ducks, bufflehead or goldeneye.
The markings once clearly recognized, a glow or grace,
clarifies other matters of doubt.
They dive, resurface, I know their name.
'What's the most useful thing I can do for you?'
I asked the old poet, lost and distraite, in a new apartment.
'Identify things,' she answered.
'What are these?'
An empty frame, a box of buttons, an ivory paper knife,
for the moment nothing makes sense.
The need to know maenad from dryad,
to know when you see the green drift of water grass combed
by current, the word you desire is naiad.
Sorting.
Sifting.
The ancient tasks, the hero trials, ways to survive,
ways to grow wise.
Taxonomies, need to arrange, need to instruct.
We don't trust the stars--
Oh bright star!
No look, it's moving.
Afraid to feel delight.
Tonight too, one was a plane, plodding slowly
towards the airport.
One was a star, very silvery.
It's still there."