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This poem is taken from PN Review 21, Volume 8 Number 1, September - October 1981.

Seven Poems Dennis Keene

LANDSLIDE

When we are old, you said; and so the mountain
Let loose its answer on the other side,
The trees laid waste by rocks unseen from here;
From here a dust haze mellowing the sun.

But that at last comes closer; closer as
The unforetold imaginings, these rocks
Sent tumbling by the fall of sand. I climb
In no direction through a hail of them.

PLATEAU

Lost when the headlights show white stones, our road
Has ended here. We bump on through the dust.
What should be going up seems down. Yes, but
The plateau would be flat if we were there.

Night and the map have not been false when day
Shows where we are. You open the door, you
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