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Book Five
we look in on the living
The fi t of remembering
has spent itself, the old ones
have gone back into their dark,
the night smells of meadows drift
in the pre-dawn air currents,
we can hear cattle stirring.
We are standing near a sign
at the edge of the valley,
a bend of the White River
shines gray in the black meadows
and the few stars, far apart,
look small now, and inactive;
and it is Nathan Meeker
who is remembering now --
rather, coming to the end
of remembering. He says,
`What a slight thing the end is
or rather the after-end.
One visits the stone, maybe
there's a little clear vapor
of a presence standing up
in the consciousness, over
the incised name. -- Small boulders,
for Ouray, in a loose heap.
And the end itself -- for me,
when the Ute bullet entered
my forehead it was a burst
of light, soundless, and then
immensely high, separate,
silent.