I.           
Requiem

 

style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Opening now, this kernel with its
implosion of image

Swaying and shuddering, tugged taut to a mooring

class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Long abandoned--this
field of stones, this shoved earth

style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> 

class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">The night foretold and
yielding,

The
gray field with its exhausted realm,

style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">The cross with its necklace of
stones

 

A crow lodged like black dust in the highest
branch

This one
tree erect on its plinth of soil

This cramped shelter of an intended world

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0pt"> 

A lone rail track curving into the dark woods,

class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">An arc perfected in
its desertion, this rust of days

Flapping like black wings, scoring the sky

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0pt"> 

O late winter afternoon where all things narrow

class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">This axis this
monument a thin channel

When your breath was already predicted

style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> 

class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">And standing water by
the tracks a gray mosaic

--For a time dislodged, not arriving, cut loose

class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">From the dull circuit
of longing, a silence

 

As the years unreel and desolate mill towns

class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Glide by on barges, a
chaos of gulls

Rising over the gray sound, explosion of white

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0pt"> 

Against a film of white clouds,

style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">An enormous thirst building,

class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Blood pumping the
narrow needle

 

And there in the distance, a faded cathedral

class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Gesturing absently to
the descending sky,

Dull bricks lodged with the earth that consumes it

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0pt">