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24 Two Solitudes I. Awake in the bleakest part of the night, I listen to rain fall like apology, kneading the pillow to its fresher side. At last I kick free from the rucked up sheets and feel my way down the hall, through rooms made strange by furniture sketched against muzzy gray. There is no husband in this house as I once thought there would be, no children turning in easeful sleep. At the stove I twist the knob till the thwicking burner ignites a blue ring that breathes to bring the teapot to a pitch pipe hum. Perhaps, all along, I have been misreading the dark. II. Standing amid the understory’s frostheave and fretwork of fern, I listen to the patois of thaw tell, in seeps and soughs, the secrets of this ice-crazed lake. Such an afternoon is cold enough to scour my lungs, to prick tears from my eyes, making a prism of birch light. All the intimacy of winter comes down to these quiet footfalls in the snow. I gather an armload of wood so that I might make a little fire for myself in the evening. ...

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