WEBVTT

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Another poem to which
you can easily relate

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is entitled "Yard Sale,"
all over town people buying

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each other's junk.

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And I wondered how I could
possibly get a poem out

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of that.

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A real pack rat, I don't
like to give up anything,

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but I was persuaded to
give up a few things,

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as you'll see in this poem.

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But the problem,
of course, is how

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to get something
transcendental out

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of something as
mundane as a yard sale.

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One thing, I made
reference to the night sun.

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That's kind of cheating and
perhaps needs a footnote.

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The night sun, I think,
in Mayan mythology--

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well, the sun is
considered a god,

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of course, who, by day, goes
over and shines down his life.

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But at night, he goes on
the other side of the world,

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in the darker and more
interesting part of the world,

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and frolics, and
has a lot of fun,

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and then comes
back in the morning

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and behaves himself for--

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while he's on this
side of the world.

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"Of what use is the knowledge
we bring back from us,

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with us from the underworld, the
night sun shining on our backs.

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This is the potted plant
you bought me a year ago,

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dead star in the
ocean of the potter.

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This, the wedding present
you withdraw from the closet,

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gold-edged book of cliches,
given to you by a girlfriend.

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I relent.

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Go to the shed for
the grimy bicycle

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that, as a bachelor
on Sunday mornings,

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I rode out across
the desert for hours.

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How they gather around us.

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Animals from this world
gathered expectantly

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around the long sleeper
as he wakes from his myth,

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their pale faces shining
with reflected wisdom

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as he lies, a corpse,
a piece of amber

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with a glow that goes
all the way through him.

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