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And the last of these poems
is a poem called "Longs".

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I've given it so short
a title because I

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hope it will be ambiguous as
to what part of speech it is.

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It could be the verb, too long.

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It could be long
as an adjective.

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It's about I suppose,
to the extent

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that I understand
what it's about,

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the poem is about ways in
which we think of time.

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And one thing that
happens in the poem,

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I'll let the rest of it make
its arguments and movements

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for itself.

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But one of the things that
happens in the poem is it

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considers the possibility
that the extent of attention

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to detail that we're able to
pay to the material world,

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that same world in which
the other world is present,

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if you remember the early poem
and that quote from Paul Éluard

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that time is very slow and
detailed when our attention is

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careful and detailed.

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If it isn't, we're bored
fast and time seems long.

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"Long.

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It's about to be too late.

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Every shred of the usual
weather is precious and sexual

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as it goes.

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The way the links of
a fugue become one

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another's strict abandonments.

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As for the future,
it will not swerve.

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Fire sleeps in the tree.

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Which tree?

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Fire sleeps without
dreaming and cannot say.

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If we call the future's name,
it becomes our name by echo.

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And from the dead, not even a
plea that we leave them alone,

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each dead locked
and its dead name.

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If the dead
complained they would

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say we summon them poorly.

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Dull music and thin wine,
nor love enough for the many

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we make, much less for the
melted dead in their boxes.

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Above them we talk big
since the place is vast.

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And bland if we tire
of looking closely.

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Watched bland by light from
what light lets us see.

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Our study, the
scripture of matter,

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our long narcosis of parting."

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