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142 gArnet poems The Ceremony With ceremonial regret I lowered a seed into the earth as though I laid it to its final rest . . . If this seed live again then so shall I. Which, of course, is sheer nonsense placed in the service of a tongue too long in the damp sleep of its mouth. From a cloud an ancestor looked out at me. And I thought surely a moment had been reached. And I wasn’t wrong, a moment had been reached—and then another—minutes, hours—yes, entire time, before and after me, proceeding in orderly fashion, through me and through the trees like sunlight or a fine rain when the air is so lovely . . . Had I suddenly become filled with God? Or was it a house falling in upon itself in the distance with a small sigh of dusty desperation? A cloud musty with the smell of old coats . . . The sound of distant calliopes! The trumpeting of elephants! ...

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