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Poets are always reaching
out to precursors

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either through
shared sensibility

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or through shared
situations within history.

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And I think it's
no coincidence that

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of it is in some ways
the Roman poet to whom

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many American poets
attorney as this country

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is poised so uneasily between
a tradition of being a Republic

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and the menace of
being a empire,

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and the transition from
one governance to another,

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of it, of course, exiled at
that very moment at which Rome

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transited from a
Republic to an empire.

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He was exiled, Thomas,
on the Black Sea.

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He couldn't speak the
language at first.

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And this is called
"First Spring in Thomas."

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Ankle deep in mud, we watched
the mute young woman shiver,

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selling off the springs
of lavender and mint.

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Head of the emperor spinning
on the trestle board.

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And as she fumbled
with a piece of string,

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he shut his eyes,
so crows packed out

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the eyes of newborn lambs.

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Rome is a moistened
crumb, he thought,

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sniffing his fingertips.

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And silence is a
patient enemy who

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waits beneath the foreign
syllables for bread and wool,

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and for my shadow
thickening or fraying

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as fog thins or gathers
shrouds out of the wound.

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And for the rough green
tongue of mint against my own

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so soon after the thaw.

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