WEBVTT

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The second one that I'll read
from my early days is called

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"The Man Struck 20
Times by Lightning."

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I happened to be at a
particularly boring White Sox

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game on the night that they gave
as the door prize the Guinness

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Book of World Records.

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So I spent my evening
reading the Guinness Book,

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and there was a man who had
a record for being struck

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by lightning more than
any other, I think,

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American citizen.

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It wasn't an international
record, but rather

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a national one.

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So I imagine what life would
be like with that person.

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I put myself in the place
of being, I don't know,

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I guess his girlfriend.

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I'm not sure I'm married
to him in this poem.

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"The Man Struck 20
Times by Lightning."

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"I've known him so
long I've almost

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forgotten the first
photo he showed me,

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the helpless orphan in
the cloud-like bonnet

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abandoned in a rainstorm.

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And the scrapbook, boy struck
by lightning on little league

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field, teen struck by lightning
at graduation exercise,

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bride and groom struck by
lightning at alter, one dies."

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I guess that's why I'm not
married to him, I guess.

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I survived, so it
couldn't have been me.

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"Extraordinary yes,
but his relationship

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with lightning, which seems
the most personal in nature,

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no longer astounds me.

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I sometimes think of lightning
as his pushy employer,

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at other times he is
the master, lightning

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the recalcitrant servant.

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He is the ship, lightning
the challenging sea.

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His favorite is him as
countryside, lightning

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the endless white fence.

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Often I wonder whether
he's contrived the danger

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to make his attachments
more tender.

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I must admit I can't think
of the speed of lightning

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without some tears.

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In this way, I'm like the
mother of the baby born

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with a full set of teeth.

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Night after night,
she lies awake,

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examining the record books,
imagining his dubious future.

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Charlatan, I say
on rainy nights,

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for he's never been
struck in my presence.

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Yet with every weather
forecast, I fear his loss,

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knowing I'd miss those
singed greetings,

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those thunderous goodbyes."

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