WEBVTT

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I think I'll go to a
sort of an older poem.

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This is essentially
again, one of these poems

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that for some stupid reason, it
took a long time to complete.

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I mean, sometimes the
really simplest things.

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Especially if you're
not very bright,

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I mean, it take a long
time to see the obvious.

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And this one started in
California years ago.

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I had moved to
California, and I used

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to get calls from my
friends on the East Coast.

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And so I was hearing their
voices over the great distance.

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And they would call
me at odd hours

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too, because they
were people who

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didn't know about these
things like the time zones.

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They were preoccupied with
higher things and poetry

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things, so--

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I'd just heard their lives sort
of distinctly over the phone.

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And mostly what
they did is that,

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they complained all the
time about their lives.

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And I never noticed that before.

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I mean, somebody calls you next
door, I mean, I don't know.

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It doesn't have the
same quality as if you

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get a long distance call late at
night, or early in the morning

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or whatever it was.

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So but this is how
this poem started,

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and it really doesn't
need this long preface.

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The title came first, and
then just the rest of it.

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And the poem is entitled
Great Infirmities.

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Great infirmities.

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Everyone has only one leg.

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It's so difficult
to get around, so

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difficult to climb the stairs
without a cane or a crutch

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to our name.

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And only one arm,
impossible contortions, just

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to embrace the one you love.

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To cut the bread on the table,
to put a coat on in a hurry.

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I should mention that we are
almost blind, and a little deaf

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in both ears.

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Perilous to be on the street
among the congregations

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of the afflicted, with only a
few steps committed to memory.

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Meekly, we let
ourselves be diverted

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in the endless twilight.

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Blind, seeing eye
dogs on our leashes.

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And immense
stillness everywhere,

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with the trees always bare.

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The raindrops coming down
only halfway, coming so close

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and giving up.

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