WEBVTT

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Now this last poem in
this group comes out

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of a correspondence I've had
over several years with a man

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in prison in New York State.

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And the poem is conceived
as letters to me

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from this prisoner,
extending over several years,

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beginning when we
barely knew each other.

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It's in five parts.

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One.

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Other prisoners
you've written to

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must have told you
stories like mine,

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how when they were 10 or
11, their fathers began

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to drink too much, how, when
the beatings grew too heavy,

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they ran loose all night.

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I'm willing to admit that my
brothers, as wild as I was,

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turned out all right.

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I don't compare their daily
killings on the market

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now with the one
killing on my hands.

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All I ask you to
see is how much more

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hate I had to keep in check
than you had to or have to now,

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how good feelings,
when they come to you,

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come mostly from the heart,
unforced, not from the will.

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If I could write
well, I'd write a book

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on the subject of unequal
chances, unequal tests

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and trials, and not
mention myself at all.

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The subject must
interest you too.

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Why else would you want to write
me, a stranger and a prisoner?

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I'm glad you do in
spite of the days

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when a bad taste
rises in my throat

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as I think how little
anger you have to swallow,

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waking each day in
the sunlit, carpeted

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room I imagine you waking in.

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It's a full day's work for me
not to envy your lack of envy

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for any man as you look
down on your garden.

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In my best daydream, I
see myself down there,

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talking with your friends,
nodding and laughing.

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I'm cheering on a friendly game
of croquet, and want to join in

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but don't, afraid that
the mallet in my hands

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might turn out dangerous,
a missed shot stirring up

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something dark from the
bottom that for years had

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been slowly settling because
I'd been holding my life still.

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Two.

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Now that they're sleeping,
their radios still till dawn,

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I'm alone with the
thin wedge of stars

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visible from the high window.

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I have time to name
all the clusters I can,

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trying to move with them as
they shift west over land

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I want to know more of,
old free states and slave,

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Indian settlements,
abandoned mining camps.

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The more I learn, the
more I feel wasted here,

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and the lonelier,
angry at the many,

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not angered by their ignorance,
and angry at myself for vanity.

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Why should they want to study
when the only student they know

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is far more sullen
than they are and aging

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faster, gray as a ghost,
the thinnest shadow

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in the land of shadows.

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Three.

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Yesterday, wind seemed
to be blowing out

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through the open gate of the
garden I try to believe in,

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the one I carry with me.

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I could almost smell
the trees blossoming.

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And it seemed that nothing
here could hurt me.

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Whatever happened would leave
me strong, whatever time did,

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or the guards.

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And the guard seemed
human, even the worst ones,

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more afraid than cruel.

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So if today the wind
carries no garden smell,

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should I believe I
dreamed it any more

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than I dream the world, the
slums and mudflats, the pear

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tree I once took pears from?

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Among the hours of hate, I can
clear a space for simple sorrow

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to breathe in.

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When I find, in a guard's
face, nothing I want to find,

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I must imagine what
he might have been,

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the boy on the street
on summer evenings,

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playing hard at
hide and go seek,

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cheering as a friend scrambles
across the lawn to the home

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tree to free the prisoners.

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Four.

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The world locks us
away and forgets.

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But we never forget the world.

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And if you can come
on diploma day,

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you can watch the few
men in the study program

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receive their scrolls
in the visiting room.

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Students of earth
crust and epics,

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foreign policy, light
refraction, Roman history,

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the food chain.

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You can see them in
the Honors block,

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watching the evening news.

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You'd be surprised how few
laugh when the president says

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that America will ignore the
world court for the next two

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years, how many
feel ashamed for him

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as they walk back to
their cells to daydream,

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in the hour before bed,
that their crime is undone,

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that a woman is lying
on the cot with them,

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and the cot is a
blanket under the stars.

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Last month, I sent you
my thoughts on Jefferson.

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This month I'm reading
Russian thinkers.

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I love the way they resist
regret and look ahead,

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as Jefferson does, to a
new order with justice

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for all, no masters and no
slaves, no wars or colonies.

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Were they studied today
by those with power

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in Moscow or Washington, more
countries would be free now

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and appeals wouldn't be
piling up in the mail rooms.

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I imagine a clerk in a hall
of the great powers sorting

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the letters into piles.

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This pile from those
unwilling to take

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the long view about
hardship in the provinces,

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about vital interests.

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This pile from those who'd
send the wrong signal

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to the enemy, who'd make us
appear weak by backing down.

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No need for me to reread
your words to make me

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wonder what your life is like
and hope, if you need help,

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that help is coming,
rumbling through the night

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by the truckload.

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Meanwhile, I can tell from here
how the letters in the Great

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Hall are hauled off by the
truckload to be burned,

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how the smoke near
the dump is so thick

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the neighbors complain in
letters to the authorities.

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Five.

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I'll be all right when I get
out of here if I don't look back

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the wonder who I might have been
had I never been locked away

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and don't live fast trying
to make the years up.

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Even here, I've done
what I could, with books,

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to climb above the
wall and guard towers

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and look out over the
trees I can't touch,

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down through the house
windows and screen doors.

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I can almost see the
people sitting down to eat,

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the happy ones
easy to believe in

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and the sad ones no more
comforted by their paintings

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than I am by my iron bed or
my steel sink and toilet bowl.

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And when the guards
yell at me to come down,

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I don't allow my
anger to flare out

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as I strain to catch the
talk in the dining room.

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And if the cries of the boy
I was rise to my lookout,

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I don't look back on
his beatings and lament,

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I climb higher, so high even
the sobs of the grown man

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for the boy can't reach me.

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Like the sailors in the story
with wax stuffed in their ears,

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not like the hero, I sail by.

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And my ship isn't
turned towards home.

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The future must
contain what I haven't

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seen in a place I've never
visited if it's holding

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something good in store for me.

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[APPLAUSE]

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE CONTINUES]

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I'm not crying at my own
poetry, just my nose is running,

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that's all.

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That's the only long
poem I'm going to read.

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