WEBVTT

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And the next, if I can find it,
is called Mule Team and Poster

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and describes what might have
been seen, perhaps, from a bus

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window in Alabama in 1936.

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It describes a photograph made
by Walker Evans then and there.

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You well may recognize
the photograph, I hope so.

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In fact, otherwise, I
haven't done a very good job.

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Two mules stand in
front of the brick

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wall of a warehouse, hitched
to a shabby flatbed wagon.

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Its spoked wheels resemble
crude, wooden flowers,

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pulled recently from a
deep and stubborn mud.

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The rains have passed
over, for now, though,

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and the sun is back, invisible,
but everywhere present,

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and of a special
brightness, like God.

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The way the poster
for the traveling show

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still clings to its
section of the wall,

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it looks as though a
huge door stood open,

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or a terrible flap of brain
had been peeled back revealing,

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someone's idea of heaven.

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Seven dancing girls,
caught on the up kick,

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all in fringed dresses
and bobbed hair.

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One wears a Spanish
comb and has an escort.

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The post was torn in
places, slightly crumpled,

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a few bricks here and
there show through.

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Meanwhile, the mules crunch
patiently the few corn shucks

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someone has thoughtfully
scattered for them.

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And a long shadow, the
last shade, perhaps,

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in all of Alabama, stretches
beneath the wagon crookedly,

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like a great scythe laid
by there and forgotten.

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