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53 Days

In winter last year I was alone in my apartment listening to a storm break around my balcony and reading Beowulf on the couch in a blanket. Falling asleep I dreamt of viking verses and when awake composed my own, incomparably inferior, for my own amusement.

Again today the wind is sweeping in from the coast and today, unseasonally warm for spring, has again woken the undistinguished yet unbowed poet within me.

We perch before the wind on this scarp of brittle land
It bows our trees and scours our beaches and drives the fires on
It takes the sun and threads our skin with heat in every strand

We perch beneath the blue sky on this slice of salted earth
It draws our eyes and drinks our water and meets the sea at last
It takes the wind and hurls it down upon the green and burnt

We perch, we plunder, we partition, we preserve
We persecute, we plow, we plead
We pray, we take our pleasure
and we play with vultures perched.

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