That poem really is about Robert Pinsky leaving Berkeley,
I think.
I mean, we find devices.
I was thinking about it the other day,
and thinking how things act as subterfuge.
And that poem was written the week that he left Berkeley.
And I know it's about that, instead.
That's interesting.
I wanted to read a poem for my mother because of that memory,
and being grateful that she lets me off the hook.
If I can find it.
"Small Spaces."
"And the Earth was still baffled by the small spaces,
especially in spring when people admired
its growth from great heights.
The Earth was baffled by the tiny gaps,
such as those between minutes.
In those places of yearning, as in the emptiness
between a child's back teeth, it was
trying to decide if there should be any later.
If so, how much later?
Not even wild cypresses by the bay
move firmly enough to satisfy the small spaces.
The moon swells and does its part.
Purple vetch and smart lupine combine to think it through.
Too many get ready, and a few die daily to fill the spaces,
stem after short stem, though the Earth tried
to hold each one of them upright, saying, 'Don't imagine.
Don't imagine there has been another like you.'"