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85 ecology 30 years ago if you asked me what I loved I would have said my dog And I did, every four foot Long inch of him, loved Each time he buried his face in my leg As if he couldn’t get close enough. I did love my dog, but more than anything I loved you. My mother said I was just like you. I wanted to be, Wanted your woodsman’s Buffalo-checked jacket, your cracked Leather hiking boots, red flannel shirts.You Were always going somewhere, and light fled From the house when you left. The fights the night before weren’t Directed at me and I thought I knew you then: you were lonely. When you stood at dusk each evening Staring out at the last of the nuthatches, Bob whites at our feeders, squirrels, I knew something had swallowed you And you’d left us again, or really, I thought You’d left me, because I was the one You told the eating habits of the red-tailed hawks That nested three pines down the field, I was the one You explained the cycles of acid rain, How all life is a chain, and one bad link, The human race, can crash it. I loved you for your hatred of everyone else In the hopes I was the one Enough like you and I didn’t understand There was no outside to the entropy In your sight, that nothing was precious, Not fish, the stars, the trees, not me. ...

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