WEBVTT

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This is called "Barn Fire."

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I grew up on a farm in
Massachusetts, a dairy farm.

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This is loosely based on
something that happened.

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"Barn Fire."

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"It starts, somehow,
in the hot damp

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and soon the lit bales
throb in the hayloft.

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The tails of mice quake in
the dust, the bins of grain,

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the mangers stuffed
with clover, the barrels

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of oats shivering individually
in their pale husks--

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animate and inanimate-- they
know with the first whiff

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in the dark.

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And we knew, or should have--

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that day the calendar
refused its nail

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on the wall and the crab
apples hurling themselves

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to the ground.

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Only moments and the
flames like a blue fist

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curl all around the black.

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There is some small
blaring from the calves

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and the cows' nostrils flare
only once more, or twice,

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above the dead
dry metal troughs.

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No more fat tongues
worrying the salt licks,

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no more heady
smells of deep green

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from the silos rising now like
huge twin chimneys above all

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this.

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With the lofts full
there is no stopping

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nor even getting close--

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it will rage until
dawn and beyond,

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and the horses, because they
know they are safe there,

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the horses run back
into the barn."

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Horses being notoriously
stupid animals.

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[LAUGHTER]

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