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.:. Footsteps Up on the roof, tramping around with his hammer in his hand and his lips full of nails, is the old carpenter at his fitful work again. I watched him go, smiling, pigeon-toed, from truck to ladder and up, his step light on the wooden rungs. Now I hear him walking from here to there and back on his business, his repairs. I hear his stillnesses, I hear his hammering. In time I'll hear it stop and he'll descend: at the top of the window a brown shoe, a leg, another leg, his waist with its big leather belt of tools, chest where his heart hammers, his tanned hands and face, its expression remoteas if up there in the clear cool November air with nothing between the sun and the bright head of his nail, he'd been thinking, thinking of the gods that walk above 66 the blue ceiling above. As if he'd been lost in their footsteps, those they took instead of taking flight, those they took when burdened, when wondering what in the world to do with him, with me, with us all down here at their mercy. 67 ...

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