Ted Kooser's "After Years"

The Daily Poem

Goldberry Studios

Education For Kids, Arts, Kids & Family

4.6 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 25 April 2024

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ted Kooser, who worked in insurance for thirty-five years before becoming U.S. Poet Laureate, turns 85 today. Many happy returns of the day to him, and happy reading to the rest of you!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.
0:04.4	I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Thursday, April 25th, 2024.
0:10.4	Today's poem is by Ted Cooser.
0:13.2	It is Ted Cooser's birthday today.
0:16.6	And it's called After Years.
0:20.1	I'll read it once, offer a few comments, and then read it one more time.
0:25.5	After years.
0:28.1	Today, from a distance, I saw you walking away.
0:32.7	Without a sound, the glittering face of a glacier slid into the sea.
0:40.3	An ancient oak fell in the Cumberlands, holding only a handful of leaves, and an old woman, scattering corn to her chickens, looked up for an
0:45.8	instant. At the other side of the galaxy, a star 35 times the size of our own sun exploded
0:53.3	and vanished, leaving a small green spot on the
0:56.6	astronomer's retina as he stood on the great open dome of my heart with no one to tell.
1:09.3	This is a wonderfully poignant, tight little poem by Cooser.
1:17.1	It seems to describe, or it drafts on the weight maybe of some relationship that we don't find out a lot about, just a vision that is full of melancholy.
1:35.9	Today, from a distance, I saw you walking away.
1:39.2	Is that because two people who were recently intimate with one another, in love with one another, are now estranged.
1:50.0	And the distance is a new factor in their relationship.
1:55.8	Is that because a lost love that the speaker has not seen in many years.
2:04.2	Aim into view today.
2:07.1	Was the other person aware that they were seen from a distance walking away?
2:11.5	We don't know any of that.
	...

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