WEBVTT

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In the last few years, I
got to know a poet I greatly

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admire who also lives in San
Francisco, Robert Duncan, who's

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older than me and
much better than me.

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And he-- I was very happy
that he based some poems,

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in a sense, on some poems
of mine from my last book.

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And one of them is an answer
to this, in a sense that's

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the father's answer to the boy.

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So I'm going to read this now.

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It's not my poem, this
is by Robert Duncan.

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And since he wrote two poems
based on this one, which

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I think is published somewhere,
maybe it's privately published.

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Since he wrote two poems and
this is the second of them,

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it's called "Second Take
on Rites of Passage."

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And this is the father's answer.

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Something is taking place.

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Horns thrust upward
from the brow.

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Hooves beat impatient
where feet once were.

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My son, youth grows
alarming in your face.

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Your innocent regard is
cruelly charming to me now.

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You bristle when
my fond hand would

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stir to stroke your cheek.

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I do not dare.

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Irregular meters.

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Feet between your
heart and mine.

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Snuffling the air, you take
the heat and scan the lines.

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You take in going as if
I were or were not there

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and overtake me.

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And where it seems but
yesterday I spilled the wine

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you too grow beastly
to become a man.

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Peace.

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Peace.

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I've had enough.

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What can I say when
song's demanded?

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I've had my fill of song.

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My longing to sing grows full.

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Time's emptied me.

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And where my youth was, now
the sun in you grows hot.

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Your day is young.

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My place, you take triumphantly.

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All along, it's been
for you, for this

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lowering of your horns.

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She had her will of me and will
not let my struggling spirit

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in itself be free.

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