62 lines
1.3 KiB
Markdown
62 lines
1.3 KiB
Markdown
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---
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author: Jeremy Kidwell
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date: "2016-02-08"
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#layout: post
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slug: friday-poem
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status: publish
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title: A poem for your friday
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wordpress_id: '468'
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categories:
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- Poems
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---
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"The Heaven of Animals" by James L. Dickey
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Here they are. The soft eyes open.
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If they have lived in a wood
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It is a wood.
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If they have lived on plains
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It is grass rolling
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Under their feet forever.
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Having no souls, they have come,
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Anyway, beyond their knowing.
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Their instincts wholly bloom
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And they rise.
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The soft eyes open.
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To match them, the landscape flowers,
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Outdoing, desperately
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Outdoing what is required:
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The richest wood,
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The deepest field.
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For some of these,
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It could not be the place
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It is, without blood.
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These hunt, as they have done,
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But with claws and teeth grown perfect,
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More deadly than they can believe.
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They stalk more silently,
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And crouch on the limbs of trees,
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And their descent
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Upon the bright backs of their prey
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May take years
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In a sovereign floating of joy.
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And those that are hunted
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Know this as their life,
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Their reward: to walk
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Under such trees in full knowledge
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Of what is in glory above them,
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And to feel no fear,
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But acceptance, compliance.
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Fulfilling themselves without pain
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At the cycle’s center,
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They tremble, they walk
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Under the tree,
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They fall, they are torn,
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They rise, they walk again.
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