This is the blog form of the original composition. You may also read it as a list on one page.
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echoes with his own heartbeat.
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From the beginning,
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as he grew within her womb,
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the child was not hers,
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not really hers to possess.
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Their hearts beat in counterpoint.
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She expected it.
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Knew no escape, no rescue
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from consequences
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robed in slick silks, beaten gold
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or naked, shawled in tatters.
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Would he speak aloud
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in arrogance, righteousness?
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Weave no excuses
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to cloak lies that rest easy
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on shoulders unbent by guilt?
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Or would he whisper
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words of humble penitence,
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seek forgiveness?
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Without excuse, beg trust to
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knit the savaged skeins of love.
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The fabric of love,
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as fragile as gossamer
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rent by deception.
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Slender strands release lovers
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who fall from where they were bound.
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Or not? Love’s fabric:
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a post-modern construction
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of titanium.
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Mesh, when bent, curved, sewn, stapled,
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protects better than the skull.
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Bent, curved, lined, he lives,
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sees his life in retrospect.
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An iron mirror
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frames his vision, confines him
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to one dimension: surface.
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His face displeases.
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Years become topography,
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transferred onto skin.
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Reveal him, a landscape of
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spider veins, pockmarks, wide pores.
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Better not to look,
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at least not as closely.
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Better to look past,
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to the past, its promise then,
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not at what the future wrought.
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What future, the boy?
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Heavy set, teen-tall,
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his vantage all his own.
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Few understand what he sees
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wherever he looks around him.
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How to love the boy?
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He sits apart, averts his eyes.
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Wordless, he cries out
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a single note, at random.
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His calls, a plea for something.
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What does the boy hear?
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He sways to his own rhythms,
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calls in counterpoint
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to those around him who don’t
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understand what it is they hear.
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He can see, can hear.
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Caught by a prism’s spectrum,
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its sole prisoner,
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drawn to the sound of its light,
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loses himself in colour.
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Oak-leaf strewn, rough steps
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to the lower waterfall,
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lined with plump pumpkins.
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Each orb carries one letter.
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They spell “Will you marry me?”
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Such an offer, made
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in snow-squall bold November:
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how can she not take
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one hundred and twenty-three
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joyful steps to her future?
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Why does it matter
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who it was cast the first stone
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when all that remains
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of the staircase toward peace
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is rubble and blood and hate.
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under the weight of these stones
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from quarries, beachheads,
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roadsides, ruins, prisons where
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humanity languishes.
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And yet, new snow falls
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on laneways, stones and grasses
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still green, summer green.
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A lace veil of soft, bright cold
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transforms landscape into bride.
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At the edge of lakes,
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freed from scarves of ice, waits Spring.
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And in weaves of waves,
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on elms with bud appliqués,
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at the hem of tufted clouds.
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A garter snake basks
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on bedding of shore-worn shale,
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near the watermark.
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Loons dive into veiled shadows.
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Snowgeese embroider the sky.