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Where We Are (after Bede) by Stephen Dobyns

A man tears a chunk of bread off the brown loaf, then wipes the gravy from his plate. Around him at the long table, friends fill their mouths with duck and roast pork, fill their cups from pitchers of wine. Hearing a high twittering, the man

looks to see a bird*black with a white patch beneath its beak*flying the length of the hall, having flown in by a window over the door. As straight as a taut string, the bird flies beneath the roofbeams, as firelight flings its shadow against the ceiling.

The man pauses*one hand holds the bread, the other rests upon the table*and watches the bird, perhaps a swift, fly toward the window at the far end of the room. He begins to point it out to his friends, but one is telling hunting stories, as another describes the best way

to butcher a pig. The man shoves the bread in his mouth, then slaps his hand down hard on the thigh of the woman seated beside him, squeezes his fingers to feel the firm muscles and tendons beneath the fabric of her dress. A huge dog snores on the stone hearth by the fire.

From the window comes the clicking of pine needles blown against it by an October wind. A half moon hurries along behind scattered clouds, while the forest of black spruce and bare maple and birch surrounds the long hall the way a single rock can be surrounded

by a river. This is where we are in history*to think the table will remain full; to think the forest will remain where we have pushed it; to think our bubble of good fortune will save us from the night*a bird flies in from the dark, flits across a lighted hall and disappears.