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PN Review 275
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This poem is taken from PN Review 87, Volume 19 Number 1, September - October 1992.

Oak at the Back of the Cold Jeremy Hooker

for Carl Major

Oak
    at the back of the cold

after sedge and rush and Arctic birch
before the thief of fire
before the information of the axe

Noah's oak, laid
in drift gravel
with mammoth tusk

Black rings burnt in the soil

* * *

The lover of the tall stag
also appointed concerning the hares
that they should go free

The rich complained
the poor murmured

How sharply the man
in the covert sees
threatened with blinding
...


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