WEBVTT

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This is a pair of poems
called "American Sketches"

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and they deal with
Midwestern scenes.

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If you go through Kansas
and see how flat it is,

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you know there have to
be mountains somewhere

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and that it would be
nice to get to them--

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Some of you must have
got through Kansas

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to have got this far West.

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But the first one is called
"Crossing Kansas by Train."

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The telephone poles have
been holding their arms

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out a long time now to birds
that will not settle there

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but pass with strange
cawings westward

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to where dark trees gather about
a water hole this is Kansas

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the mountains start here
just behind the closed

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eyes of a farmer's sons
asleep in their work clothes.

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And the other one is called
"Poem to Be Read at 3 A.M."

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There's a place name in this
poem, Ladora, which is--

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or used to be-- a
small town in Iowa

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that formerly was on the
principal East/West highway.

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And I passed through it
many times late at night.

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The last time I was
driving through that part

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of the country, a new
interstate highway

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had been built through and
at the place approximately

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where I remember Ladora, those
sort of bright, green signs

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with white lettering.

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There were three town
names, one of which

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appeared to be a
Ladora, but it had

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been Xed stopped by a
large adhesive tape.

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So I didn't know how to
get there anymore even

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if I'd wanted to go.

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But if you know Iowa,
maybe the town of Ladora,

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maybe you could still find
it if you looked for it.

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This poem is about getting
through it, though, at 3:00 AM.

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Excepting the diner
on the outskirts

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the town of Ladora
at 3:00 AM was

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dark but for my headlights and
up in one second-story room

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a single light where
someone was sick

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or perhaps reading as I drove
past at seventy not thinking

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this poem is for whoever
had the light on.

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