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Joining that other, knowing That finally something must break Or speak. A silver tooth gleams; You mumble, whispering "You Are human, are what I have witnessed. You are all faces seen once." Through the bent, staring, unstable dark Ofa drainpipe, Unity hears youA God-roar ofhearing-say only "You are an angel's too-realized Unbearable memoryless face." The Common Grave I Some sit and stare In an unknown direction, through most lie still, Knowing that every season Must be wintered. II The mover ofmists and streams Is usually in the weeds By twilight, taking slowly A dark dedicated field-shape. III Ofall those who are under, Many are looking over Their shoulder, although it is only one leap To beyond-reason gold, only one Breath to the sun's great city. All ages ofmankind unite Where it is dark enough. Buckdancer's Choice / 2°4 IV The midstrides ofout-of-shape runners, The discarded strokes of bad swimmers, Open-mouthed at the wrong timeAll these are hooked wrongly together. A rumor runs through them like roots: They must try even harder To bring into their vast, Indiscriminate embrace All ofhumanity. V In someone's hand an acorn Pulses, thinking It is only one leap, Only one. VI In the field by twilight are The faller in leaves through October, The white-headed flyer in thistles Finding out secret currents ofair, The raiser ofmists from the creekbed, A fish extending his body Through all the curves ofthe river, The incredible moon in the voice box Ofdogs on All Souls' Night. VII All creatures tumbled together Get back in their wildest arms No single thing but each other, Hear only sounds like train sounds, Cattle sounds, earth-shakers. VIII The mover ofall things struggles In the green-crowded, green-crowned nightmare The Common Grave / 205 Of a great king packed in an acorn. A train bends round a curve Like a fish. An oak tree breaks Out and shoves for the moonlight, Bearing leaves which shall murmur for years, Dumfoundedly, like mouths opened all at once At just the wrong time to be heard, Others, others. Reincarrtation Still, passed through the spokes ofan old wheel, on and around The hub's furry rust in the weeds and shadows ofthe riverbank, This one is feeling his life as a man move slowly away. Fallen from that estate, he has gone down on his knees And beyond, disappearing into the egg buried under the sand And wakened to the low world being born, consisting now Ofthe wheel on its side not turning, but leaning to rot away In the sun a few feet farther offthan it is for any man. The roots bulge quietly under the earth beneath him; With his tongue he can hear them in their concerted effort To raise something, anything, out ofthe dark ofthe ground. He has come by gliding, by inserting the head between stems. Everything follows that as naturally as the creation Ofthe world, leaving behind arms and legs, leaving behind The intervals between tracks, leaving one long wavering step In sand and none in grass: he moves through, moving nothing, And the grass stands as never entered. It is in the new Life ofresurrection that one can come in one's own time To a place like a rotting wheel, the white paint flaking from it, Rust slowly emerging, and coil halfway through it, stopped By a just administration oflight and dark over the diamonds Ofthe body. Here, also naturally growing, is a flat leaf To rest the new head upon. The stem bends but knows the weight And does not touch the ground, holding the snub, patterned face Swaying with the ~oots ofthings. Inside the jaws, saliva Buckdancer's Choice / 206 ...

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