WEBVTT

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[APPLAUSE]

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I must apologize I'm here with
all kinds of handkerchiefs

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and glasses of water.

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I am coming out of a
rather severe head cold,

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but I'm suddenly realizing
what your pollen count

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has in store for my allergies.

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So the combination
is at the very least

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a kind of Lauren Bacall
effect on my voice.

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And at the worst
something much messier.

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So I apologize in advance.

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I'll be reading primarily from
my newest book, Waterborne,

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but I'm going to read a poem
or two from The Woman Who

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Died in her Sleep.

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"Line Drive Caught
by the Grace of God."

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"Half of America doubtless
has the whole of the infield's

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peculiar heroics by
heart, this one's way

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with a fractured forearm, that
one with women and off-season

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brawls, the ones who were down
to business while their owner

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goes to the press.

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You know them already, the
quaint tight pants, the heft

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and repose and adroitness of
men who are kept for a while

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while they age with the game.

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It's time that parses
the other fields too,

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one time you squander,
next time you hoard,

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while around the diamond
summer runs its mortal stall,

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the torso that
thickens, the face that

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dismantles its uniform.

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And sometimes pure felicity,
the length of a player

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suspended above the dirt for a
wholly deliberate perfect catch

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for nothing, for New York for
a million-dollar contract which

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is nothing now, for
free, for the body

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as it plays its deft decline
and countless humbling, deadly

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jokes, so the body may once
have flattered our purposes.

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A man like you and me but
for this moment's delay

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and the grace of God.

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My neighbor goes hungry
when the Yankees lose,

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his wife's too unhappy
to cook, but supper's

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a small enough price to
pay, he'd tell you himself,

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for odds that make the
weeks go by so personal,

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so hand in glove."

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