WEBVTT

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Two more poems.

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This one's called Disguise,
and partly it was--

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[AIRPLANE FLYING OVERHEAD]

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It was written out of
the kind of humanness

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that children give to stuffed
animals, to stuffed toys,

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and John's son Bodi had
two stuffed animals,

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and they were named
for the people who

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had given him the animals.

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So one is Henry Bear and the
other one is Marvin Lion.

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That's all.

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Disguise.

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At the window in autumn,
when the leaves fall down,

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Mama calls to her boy.

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Little Mouse, Mouselet.

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Nothing is farther away than
this clamor of leaves falling,

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and a voice rising, and
the mouse, frail, hopeful,

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trying to escape gives in to
every crumb of his mother's

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calling voice.

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He will lie in bed tonight with
lamp light on his forehead,

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locked up in his marble dream.

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But now he creeps to the window,
lifts the corner of the shade.

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The first light comes
out from the first hope.

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Henry Bear and Marvin Lion
are the stars propped up

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on the immense ceiling.

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Papa put them there.

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Mama puts them out.

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Stars of the distant future,
or was it the distant past?

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Anyway, the light comes down and
stifles everything that grows.

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Soon snow will pack
around the tree,

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and Henry Bear will smile down.

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He's charming and he's real.

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God has the names of
animals and stars written

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beside each other in a book.

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What did Mama say?

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God is exquisite.

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God can never quite come to
his decision about the world.

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Mama takes off her
dress by the fire.

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Papa whistles.

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What's a whistle but a
music you can see through?

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The boy is mad because
the leaves are gone.

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The trees are black.

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Everything outdoors is
disguised as something else.

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"That's the first
snow," his mother said.

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"That's not snow," said
Father, "but sleep."

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Sleep.

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"Go to sleep
anyhow," said Father.

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He kisses his father's
wrist and tries to sleep.

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God, who's made
of snow and light,

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sighs, but never, never sleeps.