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293 Availing space in which we live and move, and chance to glimpse the trembling import of our late, suspected being—and, well, yes, the opening occasion of a guess that, when we’re after meaning, more is always likelier to please than the common taste of less with which our eager suppositions are in the main rewarded. I’m thinking such lacunae as this cove may lend us all their latent agency each and every time we enter, willing to attend the puzzle, leaning in to ambiguity, aloof to any fear accompanying what bit we witness in the local, endless, fraught fragility of every passing scene. Keep up. I, too, had chance occasion, once, to lean, to choose between two such modes of travel— that of knowing, clearly, what I meant to see and, on the other hand, not so sure, but eager for the roads’ divergences to obtain to something skirting illumination. If I sigh now, it’s not so much for me as for the prospect of a road constructed as we go, bearing both our burdens and ourselves, always just ahead, and bearing on. The Fragile Surround Scott Cairns 294 S COT T C A I R N S And sure, we’re hoping to proceed, to get somewhere, and much of our attention speeds ahead. My point, I now suppose, has more to do with honoring the road itself, the ragged, dust-glazed bracken by the side, and giving each attendant host its due—the roebuck, woodchuck, turtle, and the toad, the hawk the raucous jay or raven yammering, the fleet and near-angelic wren and chickadee, the modest beetle, humble bee, blind ant. ...

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