WEBVTT

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Just a couple of older poems.

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I get my breath.

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You know, that didn't
work at all, did it?

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This is a poem
called The Milky Way.

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When we first came
down to Tucson

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my son, who was
then three years old

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came down with
juvenile diabetes.

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And because he was
misdiagnosed almost died.

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The poem is about that.

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About his recovery from
it and about my childhood.

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The Milky Way.

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When I was a boy, the
Milky Way floated just

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over the city of Boston so I
was lucky to live in that place.

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That house where my
father lathered his face

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and like the moon went out,
came back, walking winter nights

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beneath the Milky Way.

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Few thoughts, few fears, a way
of sleeping through the night.

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When my son lay
sewn to the sheets

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adrift in his diabetic coma
among the blown seductive

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stars, I could not
think of anything

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to say for he was
not anywhere nearby.

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He said, papa, and came back.

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Tonight in his play he
captains a sleek starship

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toward the Milky Way.

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When I was a boy
the city of Boston

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lay miles away within our sight.

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Evenings we set our chairs
upon the lawn and talked.

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Few thoughts, a way of
watching until dark.

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Then as our small wicker's
floated through the night,

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I wished I might be taken
away to live forever

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in that distant city
made wholly of light.

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