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104 f r o m t e n t m a k i n g d r i v i n g b a c k f r o m t h e m o u n t a i n s Sun leaving in the rearview mid-October. Goodbye gorgeous air. Goodbye shutdown ice cream store with your sign saying only REAM. Goodbye, leaf-traffic, goodbye Hairport 53, goodbye boat storage sheds. Goodbye serious concerns, goodbye prayer. So long song, riding along with barely a sound. Maybe not goodbye telepathy. Hello, full telepathy. Sunset has a little more to do. You would not say it is night yet, not the feel of that, though death is in the car, sitting in the backseat, distracted out the window, hat tilted on his head like my father in the late afternoon of the 1950s. Goodbye four motorcycles on a trailer being pulled. This feather-tinge was the first image I ever wrote down, the wake of some dark feather that fell just now. Goodbye, you pale rubbed glow. Goodbye breathing out lightly the Mispeh benediction, While we are absent one from the other, Lord watch between. • • • 105 f r o m t e n t m a k i n g Trees more black. Goodbye doubt, so dear to me and not done yet, between two rows of orange barrels narrowing. Goodbye dog being patiently given water, patiently lapping. Goodbye glass of water, the slow huge dew forming everywhere. Now in the frontseat with me, sky its richest dark darkblue. Goodbye, poetry. Big chunks of excitement fly off in the nightair, no stars yet. Goodbye holy softball halogen towers of Bishop Park. Goodbye, God. God be w’ye, God. The Christian fabric shop. Goodbye corduroy, threads of the king. Never goodbye laughter, never those I love. The Sunday night driveway tunnels through, key, message machine massaging. Death intimately inside my forehead, behind sight, lying on the couch in the dark, with the door open and all the stuff still out in the car. Goodbye home. ...

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