This is the blog form of the original composition. You may also read it as a list on one page.
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in memory, still prevail.
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What’s life without death?
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Life eternal: valued less,
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as would be diamonds,
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if they deposed grains of sand
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on shores of hourglass seas.
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Eighteen pelicans
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roost in one of four pine trees.
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The entertainment:
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White women, mainly sun-hatted,
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stoop, pan for shells at high tide.
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It’s not their ocean:
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The two-legged creatures that can’t
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glide, soar and plunge,
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pouch a fish, swallow it whole,
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leave a morsel for a tern.
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Top heavy, these pines
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grant superiority
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to the pelicans.
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At least, at this island’s shore,
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their mastery, unchallenged.
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Absence: Nowhere
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to return from or to.
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No beachside haven.
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No cloud-crowned mountain summit.
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No sun-blessed glade or bower.
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No haven for thought,
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not inside walls of cells or
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metaphysical.
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All absence rings: muted,
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without breath, the balm of voice.
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Glasses by the bed,
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a hospital mattress, stripped.
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Places cry empty,
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even as music lingers,
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still infuses memory.
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Infused by absence,
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rooms where he worked, whatever
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he touched, survive him.
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A concert grand, notes, books, wait
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for his return from nowhere.
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Blond, tanned, Eve waits
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on the bridge to Bowman Beach;
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her gown, high-waisted;
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gold, sequinned flip-flops; a bouquet
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of stem orchids, dyed turquoise.
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This bridge to Eden
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spans a rare-bird habitat.
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Poised at its apex,
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her spouse of twenty minutes
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caresses her bare shoulder.
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Two little bridesmaids
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in aqua tuck under her wings,
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make themselves so small
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they fail to hide the new life
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in their mother’s silk-draped womb.
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Saturday morning,
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a fox with dance and a feint
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claims cliffs and shoreline
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as his own, hoists his standard:
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red on aqua silk, rampant.
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We, the visitors,
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his audience at ringside,
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watch the tournament:
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spike-crowned mergansers en garde;
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the thrust and parry of waves.
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Waters play restless,
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even at this no-tide shore.
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They lap, slap, clap till
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after midnight calm returns,
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summoned by the call of wolves.
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Hands pull at harp strings,
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as wind calls to high grasses,
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ripples, rifles them.
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Wild sheaves sway to its rhythms;
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their heads bowed to melody.
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Dead birds cannot sing.
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Their melodies, lost to winds
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that rouse high towers
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to turn great blades of steel
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that churn songs and soft feathers.
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What will children hear
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in forests bereft of trees,
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fields without flowers?
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No songbirds. No Chorus frogs.
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Only a harsh hush, man-made.
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She’s a madonna.
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No man could ever paint her.
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Brush stroke caresses,
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lust-red, would taint his palette:
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A saint, man-made, thus undone.
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This woman: a myth
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or real? Her calm tames sorrow.
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Her tears bless the earth.
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All creatures, worthy of love,
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mourned whether full fair or plain.
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The death of a child
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gives her just reason to mourn
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for eternity.
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She will kindle love with loss