A Poem

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Moving through you one evening
When you offered shelter to
quiet things soaked in rain

I saw through your thinning branches
the beginnings of suburbs, and
frightened by the rain,

grey hares running upright in
distant fields; and quite alone there
I thought of nothing but my footprints

being filled, and love, distilled
of people, drifted free, then
the woods spoke with me

Brian Patten

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