WEBVTT

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I didn't write any of
these poems, by the way.

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They're all borrowed
poems, and I just--

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one of these days, I'm going to
rid myself of self-deprecation.

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I don't know when
it's going to happen.

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I'm going to read "Dandelions."

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It's the longest
poem in the book,

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but it's really not much
longer than "Animals."

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And I've never read it before.

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And it's one of my
favorite poems in the book.

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As to why I've never
read it before,

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I'm always fearful
that I'm going

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to lose the attention
of the audience,

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even though it's not that long.

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"The man who invented
the breeze was happily

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married to the woman
who discovered the wind.

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They bore no children
and they had no pets.

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They lived on a hill overlooking
a meadow of wildflowers.

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When spring came, the man
congratulated his wife,

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and the woman
congratulated her husband.

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When all the blooming
came and went

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and October began spilling
gray, neither faulted the other

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for the landscape that showed no
memory of friends or neighbors.

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But inside, the man always
believed the wind was to blame.

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And inside, the
woman always believed

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it was a succession
of small breezes

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that was at the root
of all the deflowering,

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though neither said a word in
this direction for many years.

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When November was spilling
quiet and the last blue errand

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had written itself out of the
sky, the man turned to his wife

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and gently inquired, had
I not invented the breeze,

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do you think the wind
would have ever come?

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Without a pause, she
replied, the breeze

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is a bereft child that has never
evolved from its protean state.

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The brisk outside air
hushed itself inside,

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and the tension that grew
between husband and wife

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stretched the bones of silence.

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But when the bruising
was all said and done

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and January began spilling
white, neither faulted

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the other for the landscape
that had now burrowed its way

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into the house.

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The house that bore
neither children nor pets

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now see that all evidence of
life but for the elderly couple

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who moved about like barren
trees on an empty stage.

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The roof and windows
were all that

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protected their frail beings,
and they held each other

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at night to lend anchor to
all that remained, themselves.

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As February began spinning
storms and icicles,

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the inventor of the breeze
and the discoverer of the wind

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were sculpted into a white
figure by a blizzard.

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Not until spring
returned spilling green

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did the frozen embrace
of husband and wife

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melt itself and
dissolve into the air.

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Lime shoots shot themselves
out of dead grass

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where a dining table
with candlesticks

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had once stood, reaching
for the shafts of light.

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Spring now splintered
through the roof.

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And when all the
blooming came and went,

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purple cornflowers and prairie
sunflowers stood defiant.

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The brutal winter that followed
preceded a modest spring,

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where a sea of common
dandelions waved from the meadow

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beyond the windows
of the empty house.

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