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Most of us have heard crashing so loud |
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We hear a constant wave that spins between our temples piercing content with its sound. |
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We lost the 20,000s several years ago. |
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Gradually we feel it washing blank the range in which we hold the things we know. |
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Put your ear to a hummingbird's wing. |
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Place the hum against the ring. |
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Listen to its still and violent motion making |
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Treading water. |
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We are dense waves. |
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We don't float. |
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Our stories all just sink below the mess of wake |
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the millions of paddled palms our cupped hands make. |
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Overhead the goose flies low, necks curve darted straight |
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as a compass needle, dislocated from his mate. |
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He found her body rafting toward the mouth of the river when |
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she disappeared with the current underneath the tree trunk bridge. |
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Out toward the mouth. |
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Out with the spilling water. |
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We saw it coming like a spirit soars directed. |
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Gunshot smoke and a sinking thereafter. |
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He fell fast to the ocean while the red painted feathers floated down. |
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And John Audubon thought about the wiring |
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as he swam toward the twisted neck and the broken boat body bobbed. |
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Examining the belly for the bullet's tiny piercing, he cried, "Oh!" |
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When a secret fluttered, a migrant hummer unlatched its grip. |
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Overhead his heart sped spooked and we splashed |
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as the gail swung cold and some fish folded in the crest slap |
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lapped at our heads, but we received it like a reprimand, |
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too consumed by motion to perceive or understand. |
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John J. Audubon, his gifted replication. |
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Painted with precision, perfect vision like the shot stain. |
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And the whole world swam in deaf anticipation |
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till the goose fell like a shed shell |
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from which the humming secret sprang. |