Another Night in the Ruins

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Another Night in the Ruins | Text of the Poem

1
In the evening
haze darkening on the hills,
purple
of the eternal, a last bird
crosses over, ‘flop flop,’ 5
adoring
only the instant.

2
Nine years ago,
in a plane that rumbled all night
above the Atlantic, 10
I could see, lit up
by lightning bolts jumping out of it,
a thunderhead formed like the face
of my brother, looking nostalgically down
on blue, 15
lightning-flashed moments of the Atlantic.

3
He used to tell me,
‘‘What good is the day?
On some hill of despair
the bonfire 20
you kindle can light the great sky—
though it’s true, of course,...

[The entire page is 234 words long]

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