WEBVTT

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This next is a piece of
salvage, one of those occasions

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about which I was
unable to write a poem.

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So I had tried.

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So I finally wrote a poem about
not being able to write a poem.

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I think I saved it.

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It's called An
Afternoon on the Ground.

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"The ducks and the green
drakes covered flooded fields.

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The herons struck themselves
the plants in the flowing moss.

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And pine trees burnt with crows,
good source of the mountain.

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One hawk rose to the sun,
casting no shadow down.

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These thoughts were five
miles long, stretched

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on a river road over a
failed bridge, past swampland

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and meadows, to the
prisons on our farm

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where goats pale to the
waist, running in bare feet.

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The truckies were playing ball.

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How could I hold them all
between the sides of my head?

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The ducks were as good as gone.

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The river would calm
down, the frogs and herons

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would fly together
or separately,

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like water through the
air or air over the water.

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And the crows all scatter
on the mountain behind them,

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be a mountain in a poem off
which nothing could fall.

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And the hawk turned
into feathers.

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Along that stretch of
river for five miles

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hanging on to the
truth of the matter

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that led some birds to men.

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I had trailed it after me.

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But suddenly, it tightened
and slipped out of my mind.

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And the bareback
prisoners were running

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around a field on the
first good day of spring,

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lifting their arms,
and shouting."

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