WEBVTT

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One more poem from old work.

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When I got a job
in Athens, Ohio,

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which is down near West
Virginia, near coal

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mining country.

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Very, very beautiful country.

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About four or five
years ago, a man,

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who was to become a friend,
who was a writer there,

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by the name of Stan
Plumley, rented us a house.

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And when we arrived there, we
didn't know what to expect.

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And discovered that the house
was a beautiful, quaint log

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cabin situated out in the
country on a dirt road.

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With two big hills
beside it, a willow

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tree, and woods all
around it, and so on.

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And plumbing also.

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[LAUGHS]

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It was a fantastic
place to live,

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but because I'd grown up in the
suburbs, and lived in the city,

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and so on, I only had this
strange romantic vision

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of nature.

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I didn't know what to do
with it while I was there.

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A lot of times I'd
notice it would

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be when I went out to
piss in the backyard,

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because it was more
fun than in the house.

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And I'd stand there
with nothing to do.

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And look around and
say, I live here.

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[LAUGHTER]

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I live here.

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One of the hills
beside the house,

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it had a huge, huge
stone in the top of it.

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That had been used
by the Indians

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to make signal fires when they
saw barges going down the Ohio

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River.

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Which was very close to it.

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The poem is about
a real experience.

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But it's an experience that,
at least, the heart of the poem

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is an experience that really
only took about two seconds.

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And I think it's the experience
is concerned with the desire

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to just to set out
away from one's life.

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In a physical way.

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To just walk away
from it forever.

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In Autumn.

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At day's light, I dressed
my cold body and went out.

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Calling the dogs, I climbed
the west hill through cut wood,

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down to the road for hauling.

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Done, there was a
kind of exaltation

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that wanted to go on.

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I made my way up
through briars and vines

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to a great stone that
rises at the hills brow.

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Large enough to stand on.

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The river below was
a thick, dark line.

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My house was quaint.

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I sat, not thoughtful,
lost in the body a while.

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Then came down the back
way, winding through stands

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of cedar and pine.

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I can tell you where I live.

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My grief is that
I bear no grief.

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And so I bear myself.

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I know I live
apart, but have had

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long evenings of conversation.

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The faces of which
betrayed no separation

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from a place or time.

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Now, in the middle of my life,
a woman of delicate bearing

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gives me her hand.

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And friends are so enclosed
within my reasoning,

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I am occasionally them.

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When I had finally stood
high above the house, land,

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my life's slow dream.

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For a moment, I was
required to turn

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to those deep rows of
cedar, and would have

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gone on walking endlessly in.

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I understand by the
body's knowledge,

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I will not begin again.

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But it was October.

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Leaves in the yellow light
were altered and familiar.

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And we who have changed,
and have no hope of change,

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must now love the
passage of time.

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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