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Occupancy

By David Stallings © 2005

Anasazi watchtower,
cylinder of stone
atop mesa remnant.
Green River meanders
far below. Near the
river, sagging log cabin,
pioneer way-station
for TB patients boated
to sanatorium near Moab.
Overhead, jet
contrails in translucent
sky, hundreds of people bound
for places
unseen.
(No. 87 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)

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Inexpiable

By David Stallings © 2003

U.S. Plans Lightning Strikes;
Terrorism Alert Raised to ‘High.’
Our weekly
compassionate listening circle
takes in this small room,
where I lie next
to a young German man,
holding his hand.
He sobs and chatters
through Holocaust guilt,
his father’s silence,
and the sense that his people
are flawed, cracked.
He believes that evil
may emerge at any time,
sucking him into
a violent darkness.
A son of the American South,
I listen.

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