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This poem is taken from PN Review 36, Volume 10 Number 4, March - April 1984.

Gran Sasso Robert Wells
Around the highest village, fields are ploughed
However pale the soil and frequent the stones.

Old habits huddle between old walls. The church bell,
Slight and unresonant, is a familiar sound.

Above the village, the final mountains lift.
Who climbs them feels his life thin out like air

And finds beyond the ridge a treeless meadow
Without a trace of history or occupation.
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