WEBVTT

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Those stairs.

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Those stairs were a
particular vexation

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to Ned, my golden retriever.

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This is from late in Ned's life.

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It's called "Stairs and Days."

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"Ned lifts one broad, blond
paw onto the next step up.

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And when it slides to
the right, pulls it back

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in toward his body
and pushes from below.

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Then the left one follows.

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He pushes again, and now he's
hauled his bulk up one step.

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Three flights.

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He's nearly 12 and huffs and
focuses and steams his way

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up the first, negotiates
the shorter second set,

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but then confronts the
longest, a curving stair

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that spills him out into the
hall before our apartment door.

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I praise his stamina, his
determination, his fine,

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dangling tongue.

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He makes just one demand, these
mornings' and evenings' salvos

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up the stairs.

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If I walk too quickly and
pause a few risers above him,

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he goes no further.

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He waits till I climb
back down to him.

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He's made it clear.

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We go side by side, or
he will not go at all.

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In this way, he proposes we
will enter into the future.

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Sometimes I stall as if a
cold plunge opened before us,

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and the next step gave way to a
wrong-end-of-the-telescope view

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of a vertical stack of days
to come in this crooked old

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building, its crooked hallway
empty to the presence,

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who would continue on these
stairs with me if he could.

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Though I know how gladly
he will be rid of them.

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Then he puts one thick,
blond paw on the tread

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immediately above us and
waits for me to do the same."

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