WEBVTT

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I was asking my students
recently some advice

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about my poems, and
someone pointed out

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that at times I have a touch
of the Reverend Mike in me.

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And there's the
barroom tender side.

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You'll hear that too.

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This next poem is called "Fox."

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It was begun in the fall of '73.

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I used to live in Wisconsin
and drive in Tuesday mornings

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to teach.

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This was the second
war in the Middle East.

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This poem was more
poignant before I

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got my tenure at Minnesota.

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It's kind of lost
something since then.

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[LAUGHTER]

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It's called "Fox."

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"Driving fast down the country
roads to a committee, a class.

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When I stopped for gas,
a highway patrolman

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tells me one of
my lights is out,

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and he drives off to
take up his position

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behind a bush at the bottom of
the hill to wait for speeders.

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Yesterday, a snake,
black and green,

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coiled down by the
railroad tracks.

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His mouth bloody,
he moved slowly.

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He looked like he was dying.

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Boats being pulled
up out of the water.

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The dog ran into the lake after
the sticks the children through

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and stood looking back at
me from the gold water.

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On TV, the faces of the
captured Israeli pilots,

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Syrian film of Israeli planes
crashing, martial music.

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The patrolman crouched
behind the bush.

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The mouth of the snake heard
and read his green, black body

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without ease.

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A bent stick by him as if maybe
a child had beaten him with it.

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Maybe the same child throwing
sticks to the dog in the water.

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Hurrying through Wisconsin,
hundreds of blackbirds

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tossed up from a cornfield,
turning away, Arab or Israeli.

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The man in the patrol car.

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The sticks rushing,
failing through the air.

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County road Q, county road
E. The committee meeting,

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waiting for me.

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The fox, it is a fox.

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It is a red fox.

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I slow up.

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He is on the road.

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I slow.

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He moves into the
grass but not far.

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He doesn't seem that afraid.

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Look, look I say to the
white dog behind me.

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Look snow dog, a fox.

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He doesn't see him.

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And this fox, what he does
now is go a little further

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and turn and look at me.

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I am braked with the engine
running looking at him.

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I say to him, fox,
you Israeli or Arab?

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You are red.

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Whose color is that?

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Was it you brought blood
to the mouth of the snake?

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The patrolman is waiting, the
dog standing in the gold water.

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Would you run, fetch?

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What would you say
to my students?

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He looks at me, and
I say, so go off.

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Leave us over the edge of that
hill where we shan't see you.

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Go on as the white
she-wolf can't,

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who goes up and down, up and
down against her bars all day,

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all night maybe.

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The fox for all of us.

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Those in zoos, in classrooms,
those on committees.

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Neither Assistant Fox nor
Associate Fox but Full Fox.

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Fox with tenure,
runner on any land,

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owner of nothing anywhere.

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Fox beyond all farmers.

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Fox neither Israeli nor Arab.

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Fox the color of the
fall and the hill.

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And you, oh, fellow with
my face, do this for me.

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One day come back
to me, to my door.

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Show me my own cruel face.

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My face is it really cruelly is.

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Beyond what a committee
brings out in me or the woman

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I love when I have to leave
her but no human hand.

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Fox untouched.

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Fox among the apples and barns.

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O call out in your own fox
voice or through the air

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over Wisconsin that
is full of the falling

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Arab and Israeli leaves.

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Red, red, locked together,
falling in spirals, burning.

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Be a realer, cleaner thing.

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No snake with a broken body.

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No bent stick.

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No patrolmen crouched behind
a bush with bloody mouth.

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No stick throne.

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No beloved tamed
dog in the water.

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And let us pull up now
out of the water the boats

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and call the leaves
home down out

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of the air, Arab or Israeli.

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And you are my real
red fox in Wisconsin,

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as I let out the
clutch and leave you,

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you come back that time.

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Be cruel then.

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Teach me your fox stink
even more than now

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as I hurry kind and
fragrant into committee.

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And the leaves following red,
red, and the fox runs on.

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