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SEEING THINGS (2)

The animals' experience
out all night
in the presence
of the stars
in the storm
in the wind,
they see
what we don't see.
I think of the birds
swaying in the trees
and of our dendrites
who, nonetheless,
can't fly,
and of our stylites
standing
still
under the stars
in the storm
in the wind,
they see
what we don't see,
and the animals
in their mobility
and the tramps
sleeping rough,
they see
what even the
stylites and dendrites
don't see
and the rough faces
of the rough people
we avoid
on the train
proclaim
that they have seen
what we haven't seen.
And what have we seen
that none of them have seen?
Four office walls
and a computer screen.

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