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Page 15

The apparent sameness of rubble
is the mind's giving up on so much variation,
like the sameness among a billion snowflakes,
each (seen for itself) unique. but who,
in a blizzard (vast emblem of blankness)
sees a single snowflake, or amid rubble
after battle, sees or wants to see
the unique shapes of bits of debris
that could turn out to have been the wall
of one's bathroom, that spot made by the blood
of one's child, that rag...a torn sock?

No, it's best to keep things homogeneous,
ground or sifted fine,
like sausage or cremation ashes,
no half-way destruction allowed. What's gone
is gone, we prefer to think,
though there may be dreams.

But in dreams, what's gone
returns intact, unless alloyed by the unwanted
distinctions among bits of rubble.

This is too confusing. All these ideas,
all these poems are too much alike.
I can't tell them apart.
Are the good ideas winning?

Note: Don't you, too (assuming you enjoy poetry) have days where all poems seem to be the same poem, and that poem one you've heard too many times before? As if, listening to the radio, you can't tune out the hum of the carrier wave to distinguish the commercials from the news (not that the news is any less subsidized by vested interests...).

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