WEBVTT

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This is a poem in several short
parts called "The Man Closing

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Up."

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And it consists
of improvisations

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on themes taken from a
French poet named Guillevic.

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One.

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Like a deserted beach,
the man closing up.

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Broken glass on the
rocks, and seaweed

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coming in to hang
up on the rocks.

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Walk with care,
it's slippery here.

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Old pilings, rotted, broken
like teeth, where a pier was,

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a mouth, and the tide coming in.

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The man closing up is like this.

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Two.

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He has no hunger, for
anything, the man closing up.

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He would even try stones,
if they were offered.

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But he has no hunger for stones.

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Three.

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He would make his bed,
if he could sleep on it.

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He would make his
bed with white sheets

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and disappear into the
white, like a man diving,

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if he could be certain that the
light would not keep him awake,

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the light that
reaches to the bottom.

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Four.

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The man closing up
tries the doors.

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But first he closes the windows.

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And before that even he
had looked out the windows.

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There was no storm
coming that he could see.

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There was no one out
walking at that hour.

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Still, he closes the
windows and tries the doors.

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He knows about storms
and about people

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and about hours like that one.

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Five.

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There is a word for it, a simple
word, and the word goes around.

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It curves like a staircase, and
it goes up like a staircase,

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and it is a staircase,
an iron staircase

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on the side of a lighthouse.

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All in his head.

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And it makes no sound at all
in his head, unless he says it.

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Then the keeper steps on
the rung, the bottom rung,

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and the ascent begins,
clangorous, rung after rung.

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He wants to keep the
light going, if he can.

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But the man closing up
does not say the word.

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