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Is good I sat with you in my own last war Poem I closed my eyes I ate the food I ne'er had eat. Sustainment Here at the level ofleaves supposedly for good Stopped dead on the ground, From the safety ofpicturesque height she was suddenly Falling into the creek, the path That held her become a flight ofdirt. She And the horse screamed all together, and went down. Not knowing her, but knowing who she was Before the creek bank gave Way and the hooves broke through into creek-shaped air, I come walking past all the remaining leaves At the edge, knowing the snow ofdirt Down the bank has long since stopped, Seeing the gap in the ledge above the stream Still hold the print Ofa horse's head-down side, aware that I can stoop With my love, who is with me, and feel The earth ofthat blurred impression Where it is cold with time and many unmeaningful rains. Love, this wood can support our passion, though leaves Are not enough death To balance what we must act out. Let me double down My autumn raincoat near the summer pit Where the unknowable woman was riding proudly The high crest ofJune, her pink shirt open-throated, Her four hooves knocking deeply on the earth, the water Unconsciously holding Its flow in the pressure ofsunlight, a snail Glinting like a molar at the brink, And felt it all give way in one clear scream Lifted out the horse through her lipsticked mouth, Sustainment / 267 And then, ripping the path clean out ofthe woods, Landslid down fifty feet, Snapping high-grade leather, past any help in the world As the horse turned over her, in a long changed shape Loomed once, crossed the sun and the upper trees Like a myth with a hold on her feet, and fell on her With all his intended mass. Know, love, that we Shall rise from here Where she did not, lying now where we have come Beneath the scrambling animal weight Oflust, but that we may sense also What it involves to change in one half-breath From a thing half-beast-that huge-striding joy Between the thighsTo the wholly human in time To die, here at this height Near the vague body-print ofa being that struggled Up, all animal, leaving the human clothes In their sodden bundle, and wandered the lane ofwater Upstream and home, His bridle dragging, his saddle Maniacally wrenched, stopping often to drink Entirely, his eyes receiving bright pebbles, His head in his own image where it flowed. A Letter Looking out ofthe dark ofthe town At midnight, looking down Into water under the lighthouse: Abstractedly, timelessly looking For something beneath the jetty, Waiting for the dazed, silent flash, Like the painless explosion that kills one, To come from above and slide over And empty the surface for milesThe useless, imperial sweep Falling, .May Day Sermon, and Other Poems / 268 ...

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