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Pledge

 

With flags everywhere unfurled,

even pinned to tender breasts,

would you think of love?

A gentle hand and kind word

are declarations of allegiance. 

Some prefer waving banners and singing

anthems while covering their hearts

with eyes closed,

"Oh, say can you see.?"

 

If we each dropped all our flags

and stood naked before everyone

would it be clear how

we need one another?

Would that fragile flesh -

mine and yours and theirs-

soft and yielding,

persuade tears to wash

away all pledges but

one?

 

     Stephen Wilder

q

Every form of refuge has its price.

     Don Henley

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Encounter

 

WE were riding through the frozen fields in a wagon at dawn.

A red wing rose in the darkness.

 

And suddenly a hare ran across the road.

One of us pointed to it with his hand.

 

That was long ago.  Today neither of them is alive,

Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture.

 

O my love, where are they, where are they going-

The flash of a hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebbles.

I ask not out of sorrow, but in wonder.

 

            Czeslaw Milosz