WEBVTT

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The last poem is
quite different.

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It's in three parts.

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It's a poem about what was
one of the great experiences

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of my childhood.

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It's taking a train ride
from the Berkshire mountains

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in Massachusetts all the
way to Cincinnati, Ohio.

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I took this train by myself.

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I was about 14 the
first time I did it.

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My parents decided
to give me a treat,

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and they bought me
a roomette, which

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is a kind of intricate closet.

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And you had a little
couch, and that

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would fall down into a bed
which would take up the whole--

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almost the entire
space of the cabinet.

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And you had to be careful to do
all the moving around you want

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to before you took the bed down
because then you were just sort

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of-- the whole
thing was like wall

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to wall bed which
you could lie in.

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And it was just at the
height of the window.

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And you would look
out the window,

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you would watch the
landscape go by.

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So I was maybe 14 or 15.

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I was coming home from--

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I was being sent home by the
train from boarding school.

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And I got on the train about
1 or 2 o'clock, and I cruised

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around the corridors like
this 15-year-old roué,

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seeing if there were any
boarding school girls who were

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going home on the same trip.

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And, no.

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So I was greatly
relieved that I wasn't

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going to have to do
anything with my fantasies

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at the moment.

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And I went back and tried to get
served a beer in the bar car.

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And I did all this
Holden Caulfield routine.

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And then I went into
the little roomette.

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It was getting
late by that time.

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I would read for a while.

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And then you look
out the window,

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and the light is just
beginning to turn

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a sort of a little gritty
gray, because the outside

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of the windows is never clean,
so that as it gets dusk,

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you also have the feeling
that the light is not only

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diminishing, but it's
actually being broken up

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by all these
particles of dust that

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are on the outside of
the double pane window.

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And it was fantastic.

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It was a beautiful
kind of magic.

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This landscape would go by with
a perfectly rhythmical pull.

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And that was
underscored by the fact

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that you could hear
the seams in the rail--

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in the rails in the track
go by at a regular pace.

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And if you look over with the
door where you had hung a coat

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or something, even it would be
swinging at a regular interval.

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And the whole thing was
like an immensely intricate

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technological cradle.

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And you would lie there
and fall off to sleep.

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The next morning you would
wake up, it was just dawn,

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and you would be outside
Cincinnati, Ohio.

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The poem's in three short parts.

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And the first of them--

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a boy of about that
age is going home.

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In the second section,
the boy is four years old,

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and he's being taken
by his grandparents

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to a railroad yard
in roundhouse.

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Roundhouse like-- I guess
trains are so defunct now.

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Somebody might not know
what a roundhouse is.

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It's where the
trains would go in

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and it was this kind of
immense locomotive lazy Susan.

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And they would turn
the whole thing around

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and then the train
would come back out,

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be pointed the other way.

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And it was one of the
great treats for me

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as a child to go over
to the roundhouse

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and watch them turn
the trains around.

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The third section, the
same boy, now older,

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is coming back on
the train to attend

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a funeral of his grandfather.

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This is three short parts.

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And I think that this
will be the last poem.

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It's called "Taking
the Train Home".

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One-- "Dusk grew on the window.

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I listened for the click
of the seams in the rails,

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to come at the same speed, the
telephone wires sagged and then

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shot upward to the pole.

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All night, I slept between the
rails, a boy on a stretcher.

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When I'd wake up
outside Chillicothe,

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I felt like a fish.

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Alfalfa and cows peered in
as I went by in my aquarium,

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my night in glass.

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Dawn flew against the
window the same way

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a fly swarms by itself against
the heat of a bare light bulb.

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Like a heart attack,
I'd be home soon.

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7:15, all out for Cincinnati."

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Two--

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"It's Sunday, and I'm only 4.

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And my grandparents are
taking me to Sharonville,

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to the roundhouse.

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Pop drives.

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The part in the white
crest of his hair

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is like a compass needle.

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Non sings.

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From the backseat,
I lean between them.

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I can feel the soot, the
cinders like black popcorn

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under my feet already
outgrowing their shoes.

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The roundhouse ceiling is
charred by sparks and grime

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smears its highest windows.

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Coal cars smolder on sidings
while the engine turns away

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from its arrival.

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I was going to live in a
roundhouse when I grew up,

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a light house.

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Every morning, the moon
would steam in over the sea

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and turn around.

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The table would be
set for breakfast

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before I went to bed,
my little tower of pills

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beside the juice glasses.

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My hair would be
white like pops.

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And by its light, the ship's
long pods of sleep and fuel

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oil, coffee beans,
microscopes, brooms

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with real straw, cameras, wine,
machine tools, truffles, shoes.

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By the light of my
hair, ships would

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sleep into port and germinate."

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Three-- "In my dream,
I'm only four again.

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Pop is alive.

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He walk slowly.

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Emphysema.

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I've eaten something metallic,
something I don't understand.

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I circle away from him to
vomit among roadside weeds.

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I force it up.

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It's like gruel with
roofing nails for lumps.

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I love this dying man.

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I look up, and he bobs
over a wave in the road.

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He's swimming out to sea.

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I begin following.

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But my legs are too short.

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And death is my
father, but this is

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my body, which will fall apart.

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I'm sleeping on the ocean.

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I'm asleep on a train
outside Red Lion, Ohio.

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I don't know.

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I can't tell.

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But it seems to me that if
I could watch my body sleep,

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it would glow, growing its
antibodies to eternal life,

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growing the lives we
give away when we wake."

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[APPLAUSE]

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