WEBVTT

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One of our children
came home from college

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and told us a bit
of information that

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relates to this I want to read.

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In biology, somewhere was
what's at the back of this poem.

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I'd like to read the poem.

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And I won't promise.

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This is the only one.

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I might even read
this one again.

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It's very short.

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It's called Growing Up.

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One of my wings beat faster.

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I couldn't help it, the
one away from the light.

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It hurt to be told all the time
how I love that terrible flame.

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What he told us was that because
of some tropism or something,

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Mars, on Mars, the wing
away from the light

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beats faster than the
one toward the light.

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They don't really like
that flame after all.

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They just can't help.

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But the wing out there in
the dark steers them in.

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Well, I just want to read
my poem one more time.

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And I'll hurry up.

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Growing Up.

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One of my wings beat faster.

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I couldn't help it.

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The one away from the light.

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It hurt to be told all the time
how I love that terrible flame.

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I see that had written on this
one for some reason, where

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it was published in the nation.

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And these others,
and I'm now I feel

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I'm speaking,
especially to those

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of us who are involved in
writing and sending things

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around.

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I'd like to stop for a
minute and confess something.

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I was glad to have
an introduction that

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made me sound successful.

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Thank you, Lois.

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And yeah, that's true.

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Yeah, it's pretty
true what you said.

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But back of all this, of
course, for those of us

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who are in on it.

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We know that a lot
of these things

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go out and come back
like homing pigeons.

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I mean, they know the way back.

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Here they come.

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And I've been trying.

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I've been writing for years.

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Like getting up early this
morning, and most mornings

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and writing, and
sending things out.

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I hadn't thought of saying this.

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But I might as well
confess maybe about

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on the average of maybe
50 poems in the mail

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all the time just for
the last 15 years or so.

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And some of them are almost
certain to stick somewhere.

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It's just through mistake or
shuffling the things excepted.

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But even now, after trying for
so long, I think about five

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out of six things at least
to come back each time.

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These are even of the things
that I think I finished,

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that I have some faith in.

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And there are an
awful lot of others

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that are at home and available.

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In fact, I have a little
notebooks with these copies in.

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And they usually say
something like forlorn hopes

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or lapsed expectations.

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So I have many
volumes like that.

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One of the things that came up
last night in that class and I

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forgot about this
was about I think

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this was part of our
interchange, something

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about syllables.

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I want to read it.

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Well, I want to say this first.

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I have heard students tell
me something like this.

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Oh, I'm taking old
so-and-so literature class.

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And it's really dull and boring.

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We read those works
of literature.

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And we analyze
every word they say.

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And I'm supposed to
sympathize, and I

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try to keep my face for
solidarity with all of us

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young people.

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But my own feeling is what I
found the impulse mind was,

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what about the syllables?

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I wanted to go farther.

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