WEBVTT

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The next one is a story poem.

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There was a news story
I read, about a couple

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of women travelers, who
were vacationing in Montana

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37 years ago.

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They sent a postcard
back to their friends

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in the East in Ohio.

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It had a picture of
the Montana State map.

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It finally reached its
destination this summer,

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which in some ways
doesn't surprise me

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for those of us who live
in Northwestern Montana

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and watch things
happen very slowly,

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it seemed like a sort
of timely delivery.

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There's a lesson--
if you're going

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to live in a rural
Western place,

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patience is not only a
virtue, but a necessity.

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Lost Postcard-- we enjoyed
our cross country train ride

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and saw a mule deer somewhere
along the way, wrote Polly.

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And the postcard made its
way, pristine, not even

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tattered at the edges,
among the bitter route

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and the bare grass,
traveling by itself

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among glacier lilies
and Oregon grape,

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pausing a year or two
in an Aspen Grove,

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and then stuffed by
some board mail carrier

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into a magpies nest.

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When the wind blew it into a
Tamarac Grove, and then a bride

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on her last walk,
before the wedding,

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lifted it and tucked it
into a corner of her mirror

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where it remained above
cut glass, perfume bottles

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and stray hairpins for 11 years.

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It flew with the mayfly
hatch above immigrant weeds.

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Oh finch, oh fireweed, you
have seen the postcard.

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Yarrow, arrowroot, the letters
resemble your curled leaves,

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is the color of the
state map, the hue

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of in October sunset
over whitefish lake.

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A stranger in her
loose bib overalls

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wanders the backyard,
cursing the garden weeds.

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An expert on outhouses
and salty language,

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she tends to her
llamas in Hudson, Ohio.

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And at her rusted mailbox,
the Montana postcard,

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it's greeting from
Polly and friend,

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having traveled 37
years, finally arrives.

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And so she adds it to her
outrageous postcard collection,

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pondering the mystery of loss.

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