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Poetry

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills.
I think of that line
again as blossoms blow with rain.
Beyond the orchard
someone sings. Birds cant their heads
to ask if this is the tree they remember, if the refugee
finds refuge, truly.
Steam rises off the pond; or is it
a cordite fog, the numberless dead floating like lilies
in its breath. And if I do lift up mine eyes,
what beauteous face, what refuge from disaster,
what old beloved place?
God is a tree on the moon
inside us. And of its fruit
shall we not eat? Our loneliness, beyond all hunger,
says we must.
This is the refuge toward which all
the frightened and expelled move
with breathless care, as if they might spill
themselves. How difficult then
to lift up one’s eyes.

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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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