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"Romance"

By Stanley MossPosted Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2004, at 10:11 AM ET

Listen to Stanley Moss reading this poem.

I was not Eros with a limp, or sleepwalking,
even so on a December Sunday afternoon
sunning itself on a footbridge that was three planks
over a meandering dry stream,
I saw a small green snake that was perhaps a year
twist away at the first sight of me into the tall reeds
of the future—with time enough to found a nation.
I crossed the same planks, the heavy serpent
of old age oozed along behind me.
The sunlight on the bridge and the two snakes
were a sundial beyond the indications
of the world's Christian calendar.
Then I passed green fields of winter rye,
already six inches high despite the early snow.
I whispered to myself:
Verde que te quiero verde. Verde viento.
Green, how I love you green. Green wind.
Child, follow the heart, follow the heart!

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Stanley Moss' most recent book is A History of Color. His New and Selected Poems 2006 will be published in the fall of 2006.

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