[photo by Christmas w/a K]
When I came down from the sky above Palmyra over palmettos and ruined gates and a scratch at my throat warned me you would take me;
When I came out of the sky above Acropolis and, for [...]

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[photo by SantiMB]
"Silence"
Silence Like the one before the world was created
Fog slides over the river Tangles in bushes on shore
Dew trembles on a branch A bud bursts open A fledgling moves in a nest
Silence [...]

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[photo by Michel Clair]
"May 24, 1980"
I have braved for want of wild beasts, steel cages, carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters, lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis, dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on [...]

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[photo by geographie/prieten]
"The Saying"
In an old book I stumbled across a saying. It was like a stranger punching me in the face,
it won’t stop gnawing at me. When I walk around at night, [...]

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   [photo by Felipe Morin]
"The Past"
It shows up one summer in a greatcoat, storms through the house confiscating. says it must be paid and quickly, says it must take everything.
Your children stare into their cornflakes, your wife whispers only [...]

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from "Looking"
We treat with care what we love, and we love only what we have truly learned to see, with all our senses alert.

from "Hunger for Books"
Like sunshine, like the urgency of spring, like bread, language is so familiar that we easily forget what an amazing gift it is.
[...]
I’m not [...]

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[photo by Carl Van Vechten]
"In Memory of W. H. Auden"
1.
His heart made a last fist. The language has used him well and passed him through. We get what he collected. The magpie shines, burns [...]

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[photo by Hobo pd]
“The Jewel”
There is this caveIn the air behind my bodyThat nobody is going to touch:A cloister, a silenceClosing around a blossom of fire.When I stand upright in the windMy bones turn to dark emeralds.
 
–James Wrightfrom James Wright: Collected Poems

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The shadows of the couple        enter the dark field, crosssilent as a seam
having left at the centera white box, whiteas a box
for a birthday cake. Inside,the baby.Abandoned there
in the tall grass,in the night wind,
he wants for everything: food, warmth,           a littlebaby hope.
         But the worldswirls around the box. The world
like a forest goes on
and [...]

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[photo by Arslan]
“First Epistle in June”
For days now the wind has freshened off the beachand scoured the airport and the stadium and the avenues,and cooled the composition roof and the stucco walls,and dandled the iron chimes on the verandah andwreathed the moon with vapors: For daysI have waited for signs, I have [...]

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