WEBVTT

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And a last poem
entitled "Winter Light."

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Not much you have
to know about this.

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I have an affection
for this poem

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because the poem
is, I think, trying

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to tell me how I should live.

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That's all I can
do, is tell myself.

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One thing that's
mentioned in it,

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in case you're not familiar
with it, not a baseball fan

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or whatever, Clyde
Sukeforth was the scout who

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signed Jackie Robinson, who
was the first Black player

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to play in the major
leagues, I think around 1948.

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Poem begins a little
bit abstractly

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and then goes into
childhood things.

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"The curious, compelling way in
which the light was sourceless,

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not so much dimming
as withdrawing.

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From the white
houses, their minute

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flakes of white
paint in that light

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giving them the rough
appearance of reality,

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something to be
stored and remembered.

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No, I couldn't have
seen that, walking home

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from school in rubber boots.

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I had a pencil box, a
neat little representation

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of the great official world.

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My principal was Mr.
Sukeforth, brother

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of the man who signed Jackie
Robinson in another life

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just after the war.

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When I asked him,
he just beamed.

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So now I remember that people
also are a source of light.

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And now that all that
litter of people and things

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was what I loved, but
taught myself too well,

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and for no reason, to forget.

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Is it possible that we
will remember a while

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that the process of death
will be a dimming, a lying

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will-less, emotionless, far
beneath whatever is going on,

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while certain unchosen
images gradually

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slow to shadow in the mind?

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If we dream, then we must
take something serious

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from the world.

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But what we dream is so often a
curiosity we can't quite place.

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I was thinking
about two friends,

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strangers to each other,
and greatly loved.

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In my dream they met.

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Now I would like to lie down
under a great New England oak

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to practice remembrance a while.

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I believe it would signify
some things important,

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some things that have no
serious advantage in the world,

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but are toys--

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sleeping, falling
in love, so long."

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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You feeling OK?

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Yeah.

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I felt a little like an
alien while I was reading,

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but I knew that I was going to,
so it didn't bother me at all.

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[SIDE CONVERSATION]

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