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goodbye matilija 105
dream vision
Well, it's an old aff air --
Stronger than ever, though,
This twenty-seventh year
That I've been coming here.
The memory stays clear
How other places, too,
Brought transient happiness;
I was just passing through
And therefore could avoid
Seeing them destroyed.
But much the same is so
Matilija, with you
As from the fi rst I knew:
I have been passing through --
The diff erence being, here
Your ruin, though delayed
A bit will be, I guess,
The one I'll stay and bear.
At the ranch headquarters, which
you have to walk through
to get up here, an old
yellow Lab with fl abby,
drawn-down dugs and, this past
year or so, a bad shoulder,
stands waiting to greet me, in
her usual quiet good humor.
I am an old admirer.
Last year she'd still join us,
lame as she was then,
to fetch the sticks she'd have