I'm going to read a couple of new poems.
I work for the Goldman Institute on Aging.
And one of the liabilities of doing this work, working
with older people who are not very well,
is that occasionally, they die on you.
So I'm going to read this new poem called "A Wish."
"I wanted to give you something for your pain,
but not the drug du jour or a kind word this side of cliche.
Something you wouldn't find on a talk show, in a department
store, or dark alleyway.
I wanted to give you something for your pain,
but I couldn't imagine what.
Frankincense, myrrh, even gold seemed too plain, too plain
and too gross.
I needed something that wouldn't have occurred to you or me,
or even nature, a creature more fabulous,
more imaginary than you'd find in a rainforest or tapestry.
[AUDIO OUT] screen.
Some exotic anodyne an alchemist or astrophysicist would be
envious of, a chemical reaction, an astral refraction,
an out-of-body, out-of-mind, one-of-a-kind transport from
your pain that would last longer than a day,
deeper than the past.
I would have founded a whole new religion
if I thought that would suffice.
As for love-- sacred, profane, or both,
I wanted to give you something that
didn't arrive with a roll of the dice, and was hard to maintain,
and had a knack for disappointing.
I wanted to give you something for your pain
that didn't smack of a sorcerer's trick, or a poet's
swoon, or a psychiatrist's quip.
Nothing too heavy, or spacey, or glib.
I'd have given you the moon, but it's been done.
And besides, its desolate dust and relentless tendency to wane
might have only exacerbated your pain.
If I could have given you something you could depend on,
could always trust without a second thought, I would have.
A splendid view, perhaps, or a strain
of music, a favorite dish, a familiar tree,
a visit from a genie, who, in lieu of granting you a wish,
would tend subtly to your every need and never once tire,
never complain.
But when all was said and done, or hardly said, not nearly done,
I was as helpless as you.
Could you tell?
Or were you so overcome your pain was all that mattered?
It seemed to me we were a kind of kin:
willing to mind its bold suspensions,
but the heart, once shattered, never quite matching
its old dimensions.
And yet you persevered in spite of pain.
You knew to hold hope as lightly as you
held my hand, a phantom grasp, a clasp that seemed
to come from the other side.
And your genial smile made it plain.
You were pleased by my wish to please, and then you died."