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I knew I was in trouble when I
stopped listening
To the country stations the radio’s scan picked up
On the drive from Little Falls to Victor, the valley
Of the shadow of nothing in Central New York,
Where the hills had voices once, where prophets
Rose in Palmyra and Oneida, and maybe even here,
In a diner near the Herkimer exit, someone
Brooding over a cup of bad coffee will get up,
Drive to the scrubby margin of his farm, and hear
A command, a revelation, that has nothing,
Nothing at all, to do with the bank or the government,
And his speech will be wild, yes, but only until
We really listen. I shouldn’t be thinking this way,
I thought, the tires humming like prayer wheels
On the thruway, turn the radio back on, listen
To some sad song about what people do to each other.
But that was the problem, you see, I was driving home
Where someone was dying, and that was no one’s
Fault at all, and nothing in the world could fix it,
So what good were stories about what anyone meant
To do or didn’t, sorrow with blame attached.
If a visitation of angels can shake you, a leaf’s
Aurora in early autumn, long past, then how much worse
The anticipation of nothing at all, a sort of howling
Like wind rushing past a car’s cracked window.
I could use a good tune about anything, I knew,
Dim lights or smoke, or loud music, anything
But the steady glare from the almost iced-up trees.
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