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So I'm going to
read a poem that I

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wrote for Robert Creeley that--

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I might not have read it
tonight if he were here, so--

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it's called "The Deep Blue Sea."

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"When I was smaller than I
am today, I knew one kernel.

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One acorn hard thing.

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There were hills, hills
more motherly than a mother,

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and wet sand that lived
only to get wetter.

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I was overwhelmed,
but I knew the word

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could balance on a finger.

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When I read your poems,
I drank the rain.

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I dug my heels in, I
let weeping root me.

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What wind there was sped and
hiccuped along until I was dry.

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I was hung out on a line.

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I mean what I say,
I always have.

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You say that's OK.

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So today, I unknit
into wavy threads

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that play at a grid,
sometimes smudged

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by a cruel and
abstract plushness.

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Plush as what the
rain ate, plush

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as what small souls incarnate.

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You threw it out there,
only hinted where to look.

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I swam, then up it
bobbed, one heart-red buoy

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in the deep blue sea, but
always winking at me."

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