WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.600 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.600 --> 00:00:03.480 align:middle line:84% Two poems I want to conclude with that I usually 00:00:03.480 --> 00:00:04.650 align:middle line:90% finish readings with. 00:00:04.650 --> 00:00:09.810 align:middle line:90% 00:00:09.810 --> 00:00:13.110 align:middle line:84% In Autumn is a poem that I won't go into the details about. 00:00:13.110 --> 00:00:16.470 align:middle line:90% 00:00:16.470 --> 00:00:19.710 align:middle line:90% It's a poem about, in a sense-- 00:00:19.710 --> 00:00:27.630 align:middle line:84% it's a poem about belonging in my own life too much 00:00:27.630 --> 00:00:32.530 align:middle line:84% and wanting to leave it, if only for a split second. 00:00:32.530 --> 00:00:34.950 align:middle line:84% It's an odd poem for me, because it really happened. 00:00:34.950 --> 00:00:36.600 align:middle line:84% All the details in the poem are true. 00:00:36.600 --> 00:00:39.180 align:middle line:90% 00:00:39.180 --> 00:00:42.095 align:middle line:84% I had climbed a hill beside the house, a little house 00:00:42.095 --> 00:00:43.095 align:middle line:90% I was living in in Ohio. 00:00:43.095 --> 00:00:47.080 align:middle line:90% 00:00:47.080 --> 00:00:49.690 align:middle line:84% At day's light I dressed my cold body 00:00:49.690 --> 00:00:52.270 align:middle line:90% and went out, calling the dogs. 00:00:52.270 --> 00:00:54.640 align:middle line:84% I climbed the West Hill through cut 00:00:54.640 --> 00:00:57.520 align:middle line:84% wood down to the road for hauling. 00:00:57.520 --> 00:01:00.040 align:middle line:84% Done, there was a kind of exaltation 00:01:00.040 --> 00:01:02.110 align:middle line:90% that wanted to go on. 00:01:02.110 --> 00:01:04.989 align:middle line:84% I made my way up through briars and vines 00:01:04.989 --> 00:01:09.220 align:middle line:84% to a great stone that rises at the hill's brow, large enough 00:01:09.220 --> 00:01:11.020 align:middle line:90% to stand on. 00:01:11.020 --> 00:01:15.130 align:middle line:84% The river below was a thick, dark line. 00:01:15.130 --> 00:01:17.200 align:middle line:90% My house was quaint. 00:01:17.200 --> 00:01:22.270 align:middle line:84% I sat, not thoughtful, lost in the body a while, 00:01:22.270 --> 00:01:25.750 align:middle line:84% then came down the back way, winding through stands 00:01:25.750 --> 00:01:29.350 align:middle line:90% of cedar and pine. 00:01:29.350 --> 00:01:31.690 align:middle line:90% I can tell you where I live. 00:01:31.690 --> 00:01:37.570 align:middle line:84% My grief is that I bear no grief, and so I bear myself. 00:01:37.570 --> 00:01:40.960 align:middle line:84% I know I live apart, but I've had long evenings 00:01:40.960 --> 00:01:45.220 align:middle line:84% of conversation, the faces of which betrayed no separation 00:01:45.220 --> 00:01:48.130 align:middle line:90% from a place or time. 00:01:48.130 --> 00:01:52.300 align:middle line:84% Now, in the middle of my life, a woman of delicate bearing 00:01:52.300 --> 00:01:55.480 align:middle line:84% gives me her hand, and friends are so 00:01:55.480 --> 00:02:01.240 align:middle line:84% enclosed within my reasoning I am occasionally them. 00:02:01.240 --> 00:02:05.350 align:middle line:84% When I had finally stood high above the house, land, 00:02:05.350 --> 00:02:08.500 align:middle line:84% my life's slow dream, for a moment 00:02:08.500 --> 00:02:12.130 align:middle line:84% I was required to turn to those deep rows of cedar, 00:02:12.130 --> 00:02:16.180 align:middle line:84% and would have gone on walking endlessly in. 00:02:16.180 --> 00:02:18.970 align:middle line:84% I understand by the body's knowledge 00:02:18.970 --> 00:02:21.580 align:middle line:90% I will not begin again. 00:02:21.580 --> 00:02:23.320 align:middle line:90% But it was October. 00:02:23.320 --> 00:02:27.940 align:middle line:84% Leaves in the yellowed light were altered and familiar, 00:02:27.940 --> 00:02:31.690 align:middle line:84% and we who have changed and have no hope of change 00:02:31.690 --> 00:02:34.500 align:middle line:84% must now love the passage of time. 00:02:34.500 --> 00:02:35.000 align:middle line:90%