WEBVTT

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OK, this is the end.

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And for this poem, it would be
useful to visualize the garden

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flowers hydrangeas, beautiful
summer garden flowers,

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usually pink or blue, which
actually become more lovely

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as they fade.

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The colors become more mottled
and complex as they age.

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"Spent."

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"Late August morning, I go
out to cut spent and faded

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hydrangeas, washed
greens, russets,

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troubled little auras
of sky as if these

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were the very silks of
Versailles modeled by rain

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and ruin, then half restored
after all this time.

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When I come back
with my handful,

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I realized I've
accidentally locked the door

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and can't get back
into the house.

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The dining room window's
easiest, crawl through beauty

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bush and spiraea, push
aside some errant maples,

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take down the wood frame
screen, hoist myself up,

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but how exactly to
clamber across the sill

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and radiator down to the tile?

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I try bending one leg in,
but I don't fold readily.

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I push myself up so that my
waist rests against the sill

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and lean forward.

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Place my hands on
the floor and begin

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to slide down into
the room, which

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makes me think this was
what it was like to be born.

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Awkward, too big
for the passageway.

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Negotiate?

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Submit?

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When I give myself to gravity,
there I am inside, no harm.

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The dazzling, splotchy flower
heads scattered around me

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on the floor.

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Will leaving the
world be the same?

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Uncertainty as how to proceed,
some discomfort, and suddenly

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you're where?

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I am so involved with this idea,
I forget to unlock the door.

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So when I go out
to fetch the mail.

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I'm locked out again.

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Am I at home in this house?

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Would I prefer to be out here
where I could be almost anyone?

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This time it's simpler--

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the window frame, the
radiator, my descent--

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born twice in one day.

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In their silver
jug, these bruised,

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blessed flowers, how
hard I had to work

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to bring them into this room.

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When I say spent, I don't mean
they have no further coin.

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If there are lives
to come, I think

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they might be a little
easier than this one."

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[APPLAUSE]

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