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Night-piece
Lying in the long dark, insomniac, I see it clearly: sea and beach and air And a red winter sun, down low, for fire, For the fourth element made out by the Greek On Sicily’s coast two dozen centuries back — Fire that’ll turn me into atmosphere After I’m dead, and ashes tossed out where Maybe they’ll wash ashore. I hear gulls creak, And put my being in with the elements We share with the whole show, rather than With the odd creature in it that is man Or with my self, still odder … till the tense Weavings of wakefulness begin to fray Loosen and come apart and float away —
Phrasing in lines 11 and 12 taken from Santayana’s Dialogues in Limbo.
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