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39 A Little Daymusic You couldn’t call it silence, exactly, not when the wind, That tricky little Brazilian rhythm through the trees, Still brings to you these sudden sounds: the cat coughing, A feather in its throat; the bridal flight of the queen bee; Heinz, that hound of many parts, pouring out his lovesick sobs To the bitch next door; pine cones going down in the heat; And some poet, some poor fool who speaks his piece, saying The same dumb lines since dawn, stuck deep in the alphabet. And over everything—the gears screaming to a teen-age fit; Bellow of ballplayers in the beerbelly league; a lawn mower’s drone Putting to sleep the infant insects at the summer roots— Over everything, there’s this small low hum, all afternoon, A slow lilt that lets you know life keeps its even beat, Even if, so late in the long season, it still can’t carry a tune. ...

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