WEBVTT

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I would like to read
perhaps two more poems.

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We've been going on
for about an hour.

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Let me share with you the poem
that some people have liked.

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And there is something
about it that delights me.

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My wife, Annie, is going
to go out of her mind

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when she hears me
say this again,

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but I still have to
admit that it delights me

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because British critics
don't understand

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and it makes them angry.

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And they won't be told
and they can't understand.

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All it is is a description.

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The poem is called "A Blessing."

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It's a description.

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And if you describe--
if you tried--

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Isn't that obvious?

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Simply-- if you try to describe
something simply and clearly

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enough, then naturally
you're going to bring

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your own feelings into it.

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"A Blessing."

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Just off the highway to
Rochester, Minnesota,

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twilight bound softly
forth on the grass,

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and the eyes of those two Indian
ponies darken with kindness.

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They have come gladly
out of the willows

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to welcome my friend and me.

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We step over the barbed
wire into the pasture,

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where they have been
grazing all day, alone.

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They ripple tensely.

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They can hardly contain their
happiness that we have come.

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They bow shyly as wet swans.

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They love each other.

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There is no loneliness
like theirs.

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At home once more, they begin
munching the young tufts

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of spring in the darkness.

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I would like to hold the
slender one in my arms,

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for she has walked over to
me and nuzzled my left hand.

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She is black and white.

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Her mane falls wild
on her forehead,

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and the light breeze
moves me to caress

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her long ear that is delicate
as the skin over a girl's wrist.

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Suddenly, I realize that if
I stepped out of my body,

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I would break into blossom.

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