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AWAKENING
- Wesleyan University Press
- Chapter
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A W A K E N I N G We are approaching sleep: the chestnut blossoms in the mind Mingle with thoughtsof pain And the long roots of barley, bitterness As of the oak roots staining the waters dark In Louisiana, the wet streets soaked with rain And sodden blossoms, out of this We have come, a tunnel softly hurtling into darkness. The storm is coming. The small farmhousein Minnesota Is hardly strong enough for the storm. Darkness, darkness in grass, darkness in trees. Even the water in wells trembles. Bodies give off darkness, and chrysanthemums Are dark, and horses, who are bearing great loads of hay To the deep barns where the dark air is moving from corners. Lincoln's statue, and the traffic. From the long past Into the long present A bird, forgotten in these pressures, warbling, As the great wheel turns around, grinding The living in water. Washing, continual washing, in water now stained With blossoms and rotting logs, Cries, half-muffled, from beneath the earth, the living awakened at last like the dead. 26 ...