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.:. Woman Jumping from Rock to Rock Plate 170, Animal Locomotion, Eadweard Muybridge The one-winged bird walks: flight requires balance or else momentum. Think of the convict crashing downhill through saplings and briars toward the river where he'll lose the dogs, howling at the hot scent each stumble leaves. Does he throw himself away from his paststriped shirt ripped off-or forward to freedom? And this lovely half-dressed woman jumping from rock to rock, as across a small brook? Behind on the bank her lover calls out Take care, take care. But the wine and water are all she hears. Tumbling song. As she sails from one rock, from one delicate ankle, to the next, her arms rise in a flourish that helps to steady her and dismiss him. D how his clean unflappable jaw dropped when she stripped down to her slip and was gone. This quick rocky stream suits her spirit: she sings out in flight her song of danger. Just ahead the feathered green willows swing in the wind. She will slip into that deep shadowed world and let the wine take her off into sleep. Where, in dreams, he'll come crashing to her, breathless, stripped by and to desire. 1 ...

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