WEBVTT

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This is called Poem
For the Sandman.

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The child begins to walk toward
her own private sleeping place.

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In the pocket of her bathrobe,
she clenches a hand grenade.

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She is lumbering
through the lumber yard,

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like a titmouse
with goose bumps.

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She waves goodbye to
the orthodox dart games.

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The noodle shops have
returned to their ant holes,

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gulp and a single spore
has traveled all the way

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from Wichita to tuck her
in and tell her a story.

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They're at a
juvenile crossroads,

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livestock are dragging their
saliva in a semi-circle.

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It is like pulling taffy.

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The child stands
there for a moment,

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sees herself as an ancient
washer woman playing

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bingo on Saturday nights.

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She, the child, is counting
lemons and squirming

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before a quiz.

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She is standing in a vestibule,
an airless, gravelly vestibule

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when a hearse pulls up
and offers her a lift.

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Audibly aching, she swerves
to miss some typhoid victims.

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Being shampooed by an uncle
on Furlough, who pampers her

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with infinitesimal sighs and
bounces into bed at last,

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as into a cedar bough.

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And the sandman stops playing
pinball, to mend her cocoon,

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to wrench her shroud.

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He has had his eye
out for her all along.

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Her tired little soul could
not survive another war.

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That's a poem that probably
could use an introduction.

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I could say something
about it, but in a way,

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you don't want to,
because you don't

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want to limit what somebody
else may find in it,

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but I will say something.

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The reason that-- my excuse for
jumping around in a poem like

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that, is that it--

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well, there's something
mystical going on too.

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But also it's a very
common thing too,

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is that it's just simply between
the waking and a dream state.

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But also trying to--

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it's not written in a
child's language at all,

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but you think of what a shifting
world a little child lives.

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And say about a two-year-old
child, when they're just

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getting a grasp on some
language and understanding

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some concepts.

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And they must get very
weird glimpses of us,

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that's all I can say.

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