- [Narrator] It's almost impossible to describe.

I have no such thing as a plan that doesn't work.

It has to be there at the outset, or is not a point.

First, it has to say what I want it to say.

It has to sing someplace, at least once or twice, pretty often it does.

Poetry has to be sound ahead of perfect sense.

When I read them now, I can see the people, sometimes, how they felt, sometimes not.

Certainly how I felt.

I put them down because they have meaning for me and because I think, they will at some point, have meaning for somebody else.

I wonder if they live someplace, some friendly, empty space, not filled with daily strife or ominous dreams.

I think not many such exists in our tortured time, which twists reality beyond imagining.

But if there should be such a place, I hope it lives where one can trace a quiet path, for entry and for leaving.

I'd sooner not discover, I came only for the grieving.

(peaceful music) About a century after that year, the photographer made them face the sun that afternoon in August, by the sun-washed house.

She is gowned in flowing white from blush and veil to beautiful shoes.

And he had a dark suit, complete to handkerchief and boutonnière.

She is at his left shoulder, both face the camera.

Perhaps they hold hands.

It is hard to tell.

Her left arm holds on a spray of fern, a fan of gladiolas, the sun glares, a small breeze slightly stirs the curtain at her mother's bedroom window above this glade, where they forever stand in my mind, in my heart, where she almost frowns, head bowed against the light, the heat, the day, one hand, perhaps, perhaps, holding his hand, the other cradling gladiolas.

(peaceful music) She smiles, warming our morning table.

Thinks sometimes I may become civilized.

Makes barren earth.

Flower, the cats purr and find coffee of ordinary matters.

Finds things I lose, such as myself, is herself.

I need a little more.

Silence.

Song.

Cookies she made because she loves you Day and night in their measure.

God.

Certainty when found, and rain on dry fields of pine woods.

Anytime.

Spicy.

Knowing you have done something well, and may yet do that thing better.

Light, after long darkness.

And blessed dark.

And rest, and sleep after too much light.

Places you have never been wanting to go there to compare with what you think you know.

Wisdom.

Present or absent.

Knowing you were loved and loving.

And your lover's heartbeat.

Even breath.

In bed, beside you, warm.

Peaceful, safe for the time, friends, anywhere, smiling and work to do.

Understanding.

Oh my God, understanding.

(water sound) I don't recognize the ease with which the epic can tease.

It pulls me quick, from where I think I am, to nearly pass the place I mean to be.

Below number nine, boy.

The Cormorant will churn and fly, as leaf and I draw near.

The solitary, sanctuary goal as we go by, nods.

One eye for fish, one eye for fear.

This glimmer moon pulls tide across the bottom.

My blades, my slender craft, across the tide.

My odd life, pulls me through this autumn with nothing in my work, quite satisfied.

(peaceful music) In gray silk silence.

This November, knowing that the light resolves each trunk, each cloud light bowel, was dripping needles.

One by one as I walk by.

Then all dissolved behind me, my staff, and step invasive on the forest floor.

Somehow, I'm resented by the yielding leaf.

It feels as if off shore two paddle strokes, just might release new to infinity, or more.

Absolve me into light itself.

(peaceful music) Will I be, do you suppose, surprised by death?

I hope so.

Not the end of all things here.

Let me be clear, but at what is just across the border.

I had hoped to find some small delight, whether in the dark or light either state is quite all right.

Worm or ferret.

Crow or vole.

I think what's next in perfect order.

The shape of hell or of my soul.

(peaceful music) - Should I poke him when he goes off subject?

Off topic.

(both laughing)