WEBVTT

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You know, I began by
talking about coming back

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after that many years.

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And I want to read a
poem about those returns

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and the way one
thinks about them.

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It's a poem called "History."

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Only this one-- this one's
a different kind of--

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it's not about coming back.

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"History."

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"Only I never came back.

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The gates stand open
where I left the barnyard

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in the evening, as
the owl was bringing

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the mouse home and the gold
sky at the milking hour.

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And I turned to the amber
hill and followed along

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the gray fallen wall by
the small mossed oaks

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and the bushes of rusting arches
bearing the ripe blackberries

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into the long shadow.

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And climbed the ancient
road through the last songs

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of the blackbirds.

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Passing the last live
farms, their stones running

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with dark liquid, and the
ruined farms, their windows

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without frames, facing away.

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Looking out across the
pastures of dead shepherds, who

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nobody ever knew.

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Grown high with the dry
flowers of late summer.

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Their empty doorways
gazing toward the arms

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of the last oaks.

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And at night, their
broken chimneys

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watching the cold
of the meteors.

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The beams had fallen together
to rest in brown herds

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around the fireplace.

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And in the shade of
black trees, the houses

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were full of their
own fragrance at last.

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Mushrooms and owls and
the song of the cicadas."

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There was a note on a
page made at the time

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and the book was closed
and taken on a journey

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into a country where no
one knew the language.

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No one could read even the
address inside the cover.

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And there the book
was, of course, lost.

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It was a book full
of words to remember.

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This

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Is how we manage without them.

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This is how they
manage without us.

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I was not going to belong.

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