WEBVTT

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And I'll end with this
poem about a whole lot

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of different kinds of love.

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All of them are good.

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It's called biophilia that
word that Wilson gave us that

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refers to the human
tendency genetic.

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I mean, he talks about
there's a genetic tendency

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for human beings to want to
affiliate with other species,

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creatures of other species.

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Biophilia.

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On the day I found the snake
mouth orchids, little explosions

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of organic joy blooming
in the sphagnum bog,

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you were walking
1,000 miles away

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and found a half
grown gopher tortoise,

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head collapsed on dozer paws,
asleep beside the trail.

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No dreams to dream, you
wrote, just evolved too soon.

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There it lay in the awful
smolder of wildfire and summer

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heat waiting for
its mind to change.

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But I was dreaming about you.

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A closeness that distance didn't
erase, but underscored something

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written that I needed
to read over and over,

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reading myself away.

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Sometimes I wonder
if I should trust

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how quickly my mind has changed
from hermitage to love nest,

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as if I could explain the
marriage of my solitary ways

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with the hopes for love
that I still harbor.

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I want everything
with you to be you.

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My birthday today--

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52.

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Number of cards in the
deck, weeks in the year--

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a completeness in
the number reminds me

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of that holy ratio the mystics
quote to convince skeptics

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that the universe wants order
and proves its desire in pattern

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and form.

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I walked today across
the breakwater-- granite

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blocks that encumber and gentle
the tide to swim in the reed

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lined channel where
I love feeling

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the gentle tug of planetary
motion, my arms pulling

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with or against it
in the silky brine.

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A busload of kids from the
city arrived, parading out

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along the great stones, dressed
in bright yellow t-shirts that

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made them look like
daisies blooming

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for a mile across the water
to the distant curl of sand.

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The girls screamed at spiderweb
spanning the rocky gaps

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and the boys said, man,
that water feels good.

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Last in line came a boy
who is stupid, or blind,

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or just incomplete.

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His senses slow,
movements timid,

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every step a
challenge to the fear

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that kept him closed so tightly
inside his awkward body.

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He could not move freely
even in the open air

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of the beautiful world--

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sea glittering like fish scales,
marsh grass electric green

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in sunlight, the girls,
the gulls, and the children

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singing their cantatas.

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An older boy walked
the slow one along,

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instructing him-- step here,
now lift your body up--

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and listened to the unfinished
words the other spoke,

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saying back to him their
meaning; patiently, so

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patiently,

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one child led another,
just held that hand

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and looked around enjoying the
day, his kindness bringing him

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into the joy of it.

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"Has anyone known as
sorrow like mine?"

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asks the old hymn.

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And everyone knows
the answer is supposed

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to be no, because every
sorrow known is the deepest

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solitary woe.

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Until one hears the
words sung to a melody,

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and a room full of
strangers begins to weep,

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at first in sorrow, but
then seeing others weep,

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knowing that the answer is yes.

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And in the form of that
sharing the tears are for joy.

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When you wrote me
about the tortoise,

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how it lay in a
forest that had been

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the bottom of an ocean, only the
ghosts of fishes for company--

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If it couldn't dream, could it
see the invisible the way I can,

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holding you in mine
half a continent away?--

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I knew you loved the
world's beauty and mystery

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in a way that made me love you.

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And I knew I was finished
waiting for my life

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to catch up with my art.

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All that love dispersed to bog
orchid, migrating butterfly,

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and eucalyptus
outgrowing its bark.

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All that cultivated wonder at
the Earth's dizzy recapitulation

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of the theme no
sorrows can stop.

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All that paying attention
to the beauty of the small,

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teaching: it's in
our nature, love.

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Just as it's in the blackberry's
woody canes to bear fruit,

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in the black throated
green warbler's throat

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to sing its certain,
patterned song.

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Every mystery of
planet, or heart,

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every longing that
ever led you where

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you needed to go in spite
of your best intentions.

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Every act of bearing witness,
lament or praise adding up

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to knowing that what we love--

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hard wired, generative,
biologic power--

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could teach us how to love,
bright and awake to each other,

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alive under the surprising sun.

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Thank you.

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