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goodbye matilija 111
"Many the wonders," so
Sophocles long ago
Remarked, "and of them none
To match us."
Let that be
(With ambiguity
Worked in by history)
Of all that we can see
Of what, now, we have done,
The thing to refl ect on.
Just so the voice-vision spoke,
And cold and stiff I woke.
Whether the dream was so
I'm not the one to know.
Pretty tired coming back down
today, too. Birds are diffi
cult
to identify against this light.
Sudden black shapes bank and vanish,
light fl ashing, uncolored, off a wing,
a glossy back. Meanwhile just ahead
beside the trail the little sycamore
with its as yet entire and at the moment
motionless set of yellow and bronze leaves
has lit up like a lamp, backed by
the cold shadow of the great ridge
where the sun just now touched down.
The whole day I've been alone.
And now I see a woman
a fair distance away,