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Poetry

Why do you call me good? Everything is good: me, you, the boy
waving the gun: I hear him now, crying in the arroyo: I saw the
car rolled and tried to help, but the boy with the gun was afraid
and fired: the rattlesnake is good, the saguaro, the rabbit: the
blood of strangers sings in my veins: they know not what they do: I
hear the voices of multitudes: lava, gneiss, quartz, granite: sand
that becomes stone that becomes sand: all that is through time: a
song vibrating in bone long after notes vanish: vertebrae, fibula,
clavicle, sacrum: black holes humming in space, fourteen billion
years of sound, a universe of song, all that is, before and after:
the gray fox climbs trees, the bighorn sheep sees two miles: who
among us is not good: what being not holy: scorpion, wasp,
catclaw, cholla: the vulture finds the dead and purifies the world:
poppy, lupine, iris, lily: who do you not love: what being is
unworthy? The problem bear is good: she walks with me across
the desert: the agave fruits once and dies, its seed exploding in
the world: heart, hand, eye, pelvis: which part do you not need:
thunder, rain, river, lightning: who here is not perfect: at dusk,
white-winged doves circle, looking for water, a reflection of sky on
earth: blue is good, so good: God, a fallen cloud: we have never
been this thirsty.

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The Image archive is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

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