WEBVTT

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You want a couple more
poems from this book.

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I went to school.

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When I was a sophomore
in high school--

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I'm sure you can all
remember being 15--

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I went to a school that
had eight students,

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on the top of a mountain
in North Carolina.

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2,000 acres and this school.

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And there were seven guys and
one poor girl who was a senior,

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and everybody else was
freshmen and sophomores.

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She must have had a
miserable life there.

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I mean, we did,
so she must have.

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The place was run by the
daughter of the Episcopal

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Bishop of South Carolina
who was, if nothing else,

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certainly evangelical
in her attitudes.

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Her son was likewise.

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He was an Episcopal priest.

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And we used to do things like
have prayer vigils at night.

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Which was all right,
except when you're 15,

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you really don't care to
be waked up at 2 o'clock

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and told to go
down, it's your turn

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to pray for two hours for
peace in India or something.

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I mean, you know.

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There's nothing wrong with it.

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It's just that at
15, you don't care.

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You've got other
problems, like how

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are you going to get through
tomorrow or whatever.

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Anyhow, so on and so forth.

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Anyhow, it was a
very susceptible age,

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and it stayed with me.

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This particular poem is
called "Northhanger Ridge."

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Again, a phony name for a faux
place, for no particular reason

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as I know it, that I know of.

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Because two poems back, there's
one called "Sky Valley Rider,"

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and the name of the
place was Sky Valley,

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what I call it anyways.

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I think because Jane Austen
has a book called "Northanger

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Abbey," and I loved that title.

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And so I stuck an
extra "h" in it

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and called it
"Northhanger Ridge,"

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because it sounded good.

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I don't think you're
supposed to say those things.

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But that's why I did it.

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The first things,
I'm starting out

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trying to paint the
place as I remember it.

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I'm using a lot
of pained phrases.

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"Northhanger Ridge."

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Half-bridge over nothingness.

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White sky of the palette knife;
blot orange, vertical blacks;

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blue, bird-like, drifting
up from the next life.

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The heat-waves, like
consolation, wince--

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one cloud, like a trunk,
stays shut above the horizon;

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off to the left, dream-wires,
hill-snout like a crocodile's.

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Or so I remember it.

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There are clenched teeth
in their clenched mouths,

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their voices like shards of
light, brittle, unnecessary.

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Ruined shoes, roots, the
cabinet of lost things.

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This is the same story.

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Its lips in flame, its
throat a dark water,

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the page stripped
of its meaning.

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Sunday, and Father Dog is
turned loose: Up the long road

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the children's feet snick
in the dust like raindrops;

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the wind excuses
itself and backs off;

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inside, heat lies like a hand
on each head; slither and cough.

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Now Father Dog addles our
misconceptions, points, preens,

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his finger a white
flag, run up, run down.

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Bow-wow and arf, the Great
Light; o, and the Great Yes,

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and the Great No; redemption,
the cold kiss of release,

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et cetera; sentences, sentences.

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Meanwhile, docile as shadows,
they stare from their four

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corners, looks set;
no glitter escapes

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this evangelical masonry.

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Candle flame, vigil and water
flow; by dust in the night,

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the prayers rise from 6:00 to
6:00 under the sick Christ.

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The children talk to the
nothingness, cross, rack,

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and wound; the dark
moon burns like a coal,

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grows ash to the touch,
ash to the tongue's tip.

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Blood turns in the
wheel; something

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drops from the leaves; the
drugged moon twists and turns

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in its sheets.

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Sweet breath in a dry
corner, the Black Widow

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reknits her dream.

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Salvation again
declines, and sleeps

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like a skull on the hard
ground, nothing for ears,

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nothing for eyes.

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It sleeps as it's always
slept; without shadow,

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waiting for nothing.

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