WEBVTT

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I hope those two serve as some
a preface or something like

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that for the next poem
I'm going to read,

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which is one of the central
spine poems of that book.

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And is a pivot
between those poems

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in The Moving
Target and the ones

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that I'll read from
after this book.

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And it's one of the
pivot poems in that book.

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And again, it's a poem which
is not like any of the others

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that I read or any in fact that
I've written before or since.

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The explanation for this thing,
I'm happy to say escapes me.

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And I hope always will.

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I mean, I hope it
goes on escaping me.

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But, the poem-- and the poem--

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I mean, the reason I hope is
also implicit in the poem.

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And even in the title,
which is that if the poem

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is called 'The Child."

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"Sometimes it is inconceivable
that I should be the age I am.

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Almost always, it is at a
dry point in the afternoon.

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I cannot remember
what I am waiting for.

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And in my astonishment,
I can hear

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the blood crawling over
the planes hurrying on

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to arrive before dark.

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I try to remember my faults to
make sure, one after the other,

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but it is never a satisfactory.

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The list is never complete.

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At times, the night occurs
to me so that I think

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I have been struck from behind.

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I remain perfectly
still, feigning death,

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listening for the assailant.

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Perhaps, at last, I even sleep
a little for later I have moved.

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I open my eyes, the lantern
fish have gone home in darkness.

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On all sides, the
silence is unharmed.

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I remember, but
I feel no bruise.

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Then there are the stories.

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And after a while, I think
something else must connect

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to them besides just this me.

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I regard myself
starting the search,

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turning corners and
remembered metropolis.

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I passed skins withering
in gardens that I see now

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are not familiar.

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And I have lost even the
thread I thought I had.

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If I could be consistent
even in destitution,

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the world would be revealed.

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While I can, I try to
repeat what I believe--

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creatures, spirits,
not this posture.

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I do not believe in knowledge
as we know it, but I forget.

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This silence coming at intervals
out of the shell of names,

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it must be all one person
really coming at different hours

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for the same thing.

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If I could learn
the word for yes,

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it could teach me questions.

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I would see that it
was itself every time,

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and I would remember to
say, take it up like a hand

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and go with it.

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This is at last yourself.

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The child that will lead you."

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