This is the blog form of the original composition. You may also read it as a list on one page.
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A walk through fire;
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maples illuminate paths
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toward monochrome.
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In yellow slicker
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and blue boots, the boy catches
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a double rainbow.
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Against the wild wind —
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the architecture of webs.
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Spiders and prey swing.
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Nothing stays the same
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on a wrath of God dark day
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in this holy wind.
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A dragonfly falls.
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Mica wings glitter, flutter.
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Crack against concrete.
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October sunrise
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weaves a shawl of thanksgiving:
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pearl gray, scarlet fringed.
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Grass, frost-white at dawn.
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Groves of skeleton shadows.
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Still, still a robin.
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Cormorants file East,
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their histories strung along
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lines and lines of waves.
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A saw-whet, banded,
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rests in her palm, lifts soft wings,
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leaves her like a breath.
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Jazz is a woman
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not easily satisfied
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by hands at her strings.
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On Hallow’een, snow.
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Vampires: mittened, in boots.
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Nature’s trick and treat.
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In miniature:
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acrylic skulls, lace curtains,
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handpainted cups, plates.
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Part dollhouse dream, part funhouse.
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Stairs spiral down to nothing.
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What is this circus?
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Like acrobats, lovers reach
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toward a trapeze.
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If they fall, they fall hard, hard.
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Slaves to gravity can’t fly.
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Stark on calm waters,
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tundra swans’ fidelity:
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white against slate-grey.
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A morning choreographed.
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Grace in every pas de deux.
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We walk the shoreline
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below dunes, high as ten men.
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Geese mutter, shuffle.
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We ascend the soft, steep slope.
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Pass trees grown tall without soil.
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A pause, a breath, then
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into a white-powder bowl.
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Distant waves chant as
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grasses trace the wind’s cycles
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in perfect semicircles.
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Boot prints, small paw prints
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suggest a way to the shore.
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We follow on faith
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until we stand, as pilgrims,
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to worship on virgin ground.
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Stillness, such stillness.
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Even the wind, quieted.
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Fresh tracks to the left:
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pads much larger than a dog’s;
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no human tread to tame them.
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We take flight, career
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down a harsh diagonal.
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Geese fan to the bay.
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In pale sunlight, take solace
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in the elegance of swans.
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Cornstalk stubble, white
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fields, peppered with stalwart crows.
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Lesser birds flee South.
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She cannot find sleep.
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In the tangled sheets of her mind,
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crow-black trumps sheep-white.
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Eyes closed, she seeks a sunset.
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Not any sunset, but one
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that can draw her to its night.
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She invokes that sun.
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Embraced by island cliffs and
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mainland hills and bays,
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the sea assumes its mantle:
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languid, liquid, beaten gold.
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A boat’s wake bisects
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the surface; a thin, black line
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between east and rest.
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Becalmed, adrift, she floats on
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eddies, with the current. Dreams.
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A rival sunset
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insinuates its profile.
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Upstart? Unwelcome?
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Freshwater sea, hard-shouldered;
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headland pines in silhouette.
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Flawless complexion,
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framed by strands of cirrus clouds;
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the spectrum of flames.