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Poetry

There pass so very many. Ones who come
through original darkness to join us here, helpful
and perfect, perfectly helpless like yourself.

These No People made holy just being,
in being known at all, as your recent heart
whose blue knee will genuflect for x many years.

If only to end the bending took one shape only.
No stillborn or tornado victim sleeping, to-do list
found the next week stuffed in a squirrel hole.

Nor steady drip that forms the most primitive
of timepieces. Fluid ceasing, then the alarm: No
more cotton-gowned invalid’s middle way.

Unsuspecting little girl, may this world be always
too small for you, your last days long and still
not length enough. Differ from me, so often paralyzed

by how to fill another thousand hours. Never valiant,
but not the worst reply to living, either. Improve
my stewarding. Love the boredom and the grace you’re given.

Bless those born today, pray the infant congregations.
Bless those this day who will die, chant the dying.
The only place, this passing. There are so many.

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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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