WEBVTT

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Here are three poems
I call "Prelude."

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The first two are kind of
verse, the third one is prose.

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Prelude one.

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I sigh from something that
comes scraping crossways

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through the blizzard.

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Fragment out of
what is to come--

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a world gotten loose, something
eyeless, hard, a face of teeth.

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A wall alone, or is
a house there even

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though I can't see it?

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The future-- an
army of empty houses

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feeling their way forward
in the falling snow.

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Two.

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Two truths approach each other.

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One comes from inside, the
other from outside, and where

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they meet we have a chance
to catch sight of ourselves.

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The man who sees what's
about to take place

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cries out wildly, Stop anything!

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If only I do not
have to know myself.

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And the boat exists that
wants to tie up on shore.

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It's trying right here.

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It will try thousands
of times yet.

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Out of the darkness
of the woods,

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long boat hook appears, pokes
in through the open window,

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in among the guests who
are getting warm dancing.

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Three.

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The apartment where I
lived over half of my life

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has to be cleaned out.

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It's already empty
of everything.

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The anchor has let go, despite
the continuing weight of grief.

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It is the lightest
apartment in the whole city.

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Truth doesn't need
any furniture.

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My life has just
completed a big circle

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and come back to
its starting place--

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a room blown out.

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Things I have lived
through here become

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visible on the walls
like Egyptian paintings--

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murals from the inside
of the grave chamber.

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But the scenes are
growing fainter

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because the light is
getting too strong.

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The windows have got larger.

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The empty apartment is a large
telescope held up to the sky.

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It's silent as a Quaker service.

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All you can hear are the
doves in the backyard--

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they're cooing.

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