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PN Review 275
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This poem is taken from PN Review 6, Volume 5 Number 2, January - March 1979.

Three Poems Neil Powell

SUR LA TERRASSE

Limits: distance and near edge;
here you are contained, and yet
hills and trees delineate
a further world. The curtains
know their place and hesitate,
held back, restrained: open doors
are the best we can hope for.

But listen. Don't turn. There is
another distance within
where the eye shapes, translating
image into imagery:
beyond the curtains, casting
a separate glance and now
a shadow within shadow.

Being and seeing are more
than the best we could hope for:
...


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