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"Romance"

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.
Click here to visit Robert Pinsky's Favorite Poem Project site.


To submit poetry to Slate, send up to five poems and a self-addressed, stamped envelope to: Robert Pinsky, Slate Magazine, Boston University, 236 Bay State Road, Boston, MA, 02215.
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