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Poetry

Forgive them, for they don’t know what they do.
Blood, veins, infinity, the garden, your words
in metaphor: the whole story rises dark blue
in the trees’ green burdens, drenched with voice.

Blood, veins, infinity, the garden, your words
all dissolve, like the story itself, to myth
in the trees. Green burdens drenched with voice
blur the stories, insist and transform, bright leaves.

All dissolve, like the story itself, to myth.
A million habits arrange and rearrange
blur. The stories insist and transform bright leaves
beneath which, birds preening: forlorn, lost shapes.

A million habits arrange and rearrange,
provide: to shift, adjust, put right, perfect.
Beneath which birds, preening forlorn lost shapes,
is the first tree, the dark encroachment and the rest?

Provide: to shift, adjust, put right, perfect.
In metaphor the whole story rises dark blue.
Is the first tree the dark encroachment? And the rest?
Forgive them, for they don’t know what they do.

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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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