I will end with this poem.
A small poem for Jennifer Chang and Martha Rhodes.
Sometimes it just takes a phone call,
Just a sweet word
To alter the week's troubles,
The month's troubles,
The era's troubles.
From a morning without expectations,
A surprise, a word unanticipated and meant,
Rare and jarring.
Syllables moving one to tears
When the winter sky is a simple blue
And nothing is there to impede the dailyness of things.
But the word grows from a note,
A hello, a salutation,
And plants itself like a spring dandelion seed
That by afternoon is full grown
And blowing more seeds
Lightly, sweetly,
A coloratura of delight.
And I feel as if I were both the plucked
And the child, plucking the stem and twirling.
How a single word can set the world turning
From one moment into the next in startlement.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]