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we spokehe with a glass of whisky by his sideand a cigarette in his handme with a brown exercise bookand a pile of inexplicable philosophieson the end of the sofamy boyish script still legible thentracing immensities of spacewith a blue biro

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where the river turns souththe wind tumbles from a blue skygently down through the woodsfinds out where wild garlic isand shaded cuckoo pintand a boy in a fraying jumperwho stands barefoot in the streamcaught on the edge of immensity

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by such conjuration from memoryand thus in imagination:this hill rising from the riversteep and in one planewith a grey castle at its topand two stone bridgesout of sight of each otherno sound in my skullof river, wind, traffic or birdsno sound but of the nowdull voices on tvwater filling a bath

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and this valleyits serpentine spaceair now ice onceand earth beforeonce and future dust

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memories may be storedin multiple regions

snowdeep on fields by the river

snow and a bridgedifferent circuits

two black dogs runbelly deep in the snow

it's the pre-frontal cortexta disused railway bridge

two images sensitiveto the structural aspects of semantics

no recall of the coldthe woods were black

is it loss by design?the two images are black and white

rapid fire snowblack bridge dogs

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silenceto listen for it pointlessyou will hearthe sound of your own listeninginside even when it is silentoutsidewhen you're asleepwhen the dreams have gonethat too is silence

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you, a girl in the choirin your white school shirt amongall the other girls in their white shirtsyour voices flowingthrough a forestmy desire ranging hungryover your slopes and fieldsmomentarily tameda wolf down from the hillcautious by the river

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the glass is lostthe whisky was lostas soon as he drank itthe brown exercise book is lostthe bridges are not lostthe hill is not lostimmensity is not lostthe fraying jumper is lostthe girl in the white shirt is lostthe biro is lostthe wood is not lostthe two black dogs are lostthe snow is lost

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The Immensity ©Michael Blackburn 2012

This poem first appeared in The Echo Room(2012) as “Immensity” .

Other Titles by Michael Blackburn

The Constitution Of ThingsWhy Should Anyone Be Here And Singing?

Backwards Into BedlamThe Lean Man Shaving

The Prophecy of ChristosThe Stone Ship

The Ascending Boy Big On The Hawkesbury

Pocket VenusSpyglass Over The Lagoon