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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: SZE, ARTHUR Matches Found: 163 Sze, Arthur Poet's Biography 163 poems available by this author A GREAT SQUARE HAS NO CORNERS Poem Text Last Line: "writes with a mop, ""a great square has no corners." Subject(s): Time; Language; Words; Vocabulary A SINGER WITH EYES OF SAND Poem Text First Line: A singer with eyes of sand they said Last Line: In my hands. Subject(s): Nature ACANTHUS Poem Text First Line: When you shut your eyes, you find a string Subject(s): Conduct Of Life APACHE PLUME; 1. THE BEGINNING WEB Poem Text First Line: Blue flax blossoming near the greenhouse Last Line: Hear free-tailed bats swirling out into the dark. Subject(s): Nature APACHE PLUME; 2. REDUCTIONS AND ENLARGEMENTS Poem Text First Line: A chippewa designer dies from pancreatic cancer Last Line: See the string pulse and stretch into curved light. Subject(s): Art & Artists; Death; Dead, The APACHE PLUME; 4. THE ARCHITECTURE OF SILENCE First Line: The gate was unlocked. We drove to the road's end; grapefruit lay Last Line: Stop dropping Subject(s): Nature; Rain APACHE PLUME; 5. HOURGLASS Poem Text First Line: Pere lachaise: breaking bread on a green bench Last Line: As white sand begins to touch the bottom of an hourglass. Subject(s): Desire; Memory APACHE PLUME; 6. ENTELECHY Poem Text First Line: Placing long-stemmed sunflowers in a vase Last Line: Your sharp wild cries. Subject(s): Metamorphosis APACHE PLUME; 7. APACHE PLUME Poem Text First Line: Climbing out of an arroyo, I reach my hand Last Line: I know this instant moment which is ours. Subject(s): Desire; Nature APACHE PLUME; 8. ANAMNESIS First Line: Wind erases our footprints on a transverse dune Last Line: One by one they flare off into indigo air. Subject(s): Desire; Knowledge; Nature APACHE PLUME; 9. STARLIGHT First Line: Here skid marks on I-25 mark a head-on collision Last Line: Here is the origin of starlight. Subject(s): Moving & Movers AQUEOUS GOLD First Line: At six a.M. The big dipper has swung overhead Last Line: You pull back a wooden slat to open the gate AT THE EQUINOX Poem Text First Line: The tide ebbs and reveals orange and purple sea stars Subject(s): Sun; Eatrh AXOLOTL Poem Text First Line: I may practice divination with the bones Last Line: Now the face of an axolotl. Subject(s): Salamanders BEFORE COMPLETION Poem Text First Line: I gaze through a telescope at the orion nebula Last Line: Persimmons ripening on leafless trees. Subject(s): Loss; Metamorphosis BEFORE SUNRISE Poem Text First Line: The myriad unfolds from a progression of strokes Last Line: Wake to human bones carved and strung into a loose apron Subject(s): Aging BEFORE SUNRISE First Line: The myriad unfolds from a progression of strokes Last Line: Wake to human bones carved and strung into a loose apron BLACK JAVA PEPPER First Line: Despair, anger, grief Last Line: Rain forest islands -- song. Subject(s): Fish & Fishing BLACK LIGHTNING First Line: A blind girl Last Line: Lightning. Subject(s): Physical Disabilities; Handicapped; Handicaps; Physically Challenged; Cripples BRUEGHEL First Line: The haystacks burned to black moss Last Line: Tuned his ears to the wind. Subject(s): Paintings And Painters CEDAR FIRES First Line: Cedar fires burn in my heart Last Line: Cedar fires burn in my heart. Subject(s): Cedar Trees; Nature CHRYSALIS Poem Text First Line: Corpses push up through thawing permafrost Subject(s): Landscape; Nature COMET HYAKUTAKE Poem Text First Line: Comet hyakutake's tail stretches for 360 million miles Subject(s): Comets DIDYMA First Line: Disoriented, a woman wanders in the riverbed Last Line: Blossoming yellow forsythia is the form and pressure of the hour DO NOT SPEAK KERESAN TO A MESCALERO APACHE First Line: Do not speak Last Line: Is unmarked. Subject(s): Apache Indians; Conversation; Native Americans; Poetry & Poets; Indians Of America; American Indians; Indians Of South America EARLY AUTUMN First Line: I almost squashed a tarantula on the road Last Line: A blue tarantula crossed highway 286. Subject(s): Autumn; Seasons; Fall EARTHSHINE Poem Text Recitation by Author EDNA BAY First Line: One day the men pulled a house off float logs Last Line: See sheets of thin ice floating out in the bay. Subject(s): Alaska; Fish & Fishing EMPTY WORDS First Line: He describes eagle feathers with his hands Last Line: Empty hands, and words, empty words. Subject(s): Conversation; Deafness; Native Americans; Indians Of America; American Indians; Indians Of South America EVERY WHERE AND EVERY WHEN First Line: Catch a moth in the amazon; pin it under glass Last Line: When we spin and shine. Subject(s): Memory; Nature EVIL GRIGRI Poem Text First Line: Evil grigri / taste acid in the word sybaritic Last Line: Say mango-river, eucalpytus-scented fang. Subject(s): Death; Dead, The FAUVE First Line: Caw caw, caw caw caw Last Line: Of a wolf, and turn wild. Subject(s): Life FERN, COAL, DIAMOND First Line: The intense pressure of the earth Last Line: Clear molten light. Subject(s): Diamonds; Growth FORGET FEZ First Line: Algol, mizar Last Line: Forget fez. Subject(s): Stars FROST Poem Text First Line: Notice each windowpane has a different Last Line: Simply to live is a joy. Subject(s): Frost HE WILL COME TO MY FUNERAL WITH A WHITE FLOWER Poem Text Subject(s): Funerals HERE First Line: Here a snail on a wet leaf shivers and dreams of spring Last Line: Here one is clear pine. Subject(s): Peace IMPRESSIONS OF THE NEW MEXICO LEGISLATURE First Line: The lieutenant governor sits in the center Last Line: "may say 'ay', those opposed may raise their feet." Subject(s): Legislation; New Mexico; Politics & Government IN THE LIVING ROOM Poem Text First Line: I turn this green hexagonal tile with Subject(s): Drawing; Love - Erotic IN YOUR HONOR Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: In your honor, a man presents a sea bass Last Line: The host slices slice after slice of glistening sashimi. Subject(s): Cooking & Cooks JUNE GHAZAL First Line: Is the sun a miner, a thief, a gambler Last Line: In silence to clear water. Subject(s): Poetry & Poets; Sun JUNIPER FIRES First Line: Juniper / fires burn in the crisp night Last Line: Creek. Subject(s): Nature KAISEKI First Line: An aunt has developed carpal tunnel syndrome Last Line: Water flows to what is wet. Subject(s): Cooking & Cooks; Metamorphosis; Unfaithfulness; Infidelity; Adultery; Inconstancy KAYAKING AT NIGHT ON TOMALES BAY Poem Text First Line: Kayak on the black water Last Line: Thousand years to arrive. Subject(s): Death; Kayaks; Dead, The KEOKEA First Line: Black wattles along the edge of the clearing Last Line: How many pearls imelda marcos owns. Subject(s): Hawaii; Maui Island, Hawaii KNIFE AT THE JUGULAR First Line: Sentenced to two consecutive Last Line: May be terrors of the earth. Subject(s): Prisons & Prisoners LAMENT First Line: Let me pick Last Line: Let me die in a war. Subject(s): Nature; War LEAVES OF A DREAM ARE THE LEAVES OF AN ONION First Line: The heat ripples ripple the cactus. Last Line: Is simply the heat you see. LEAVES OF A DREAM ARE THE LEAVES OF AN ONION: 1 First Line: Red oak leaves rustle in the wind. Last Line: And step back into the world. LEAVES OF A DREAM ARE THE LEAVES OF AN ONION: 2 First Line: A galapagos turtle has nothing to do Last Line: With a sunflower that bends to the light. LEAVES OF A DREAM ARE THE LEAVES OF AN ONION: 3 First Line: Open a window and touch the sun, Last Line: Wet leaf, a blue crab, or a green house. LEAVES OF A DREAM ARE THE LEAVES OF AN ONION: 5 First Line: What is the secret to a guarneri violin? Last Line: Sincerity and shudder of passion by which you live. LEAVES OF A DREAM ARE THE LEAVES OF AN ONION: 6 First Line: Crush an apple, crush a possibility. Last Line: Touch, shine, dance, sing, be, becoming, be. LI PO First Line: Jarred / the oars creaked in their locks Last Line: A dreamer's silver hands were at work. Subject(s): China - Tang Dynasty (618-905); Poetry & Poets LISTENING TO A BROKEN RADIO First Line: The night is / a black diamond Last Line: Broken radio. Subject(s): Poverty; Radio; Television; Tv LOBED BOWL WITH BLACK GLAZE AND WHITE SCALLOPED RIM First Line: Turning from the obituary page Last Line: And in a dewdrop on a mimosa leaf %is the day's angular momentum LONG-DISTANCE First Line: Speaking to you long-distance, I see you Last Line: A slender fish, silver and transparent, lepaed %and died LOOKING BACK ON THE MUCKLESHOOT RESERVATION FROM GALISTEO STREET, SANTA FE Poem Text First Line: The bow of a muckleshoot canoe, blessed Subject(s): Native Americans - Reservations LUPINE First Line: I planted lupine and nasturtiums Last Line: In the pines. Subject(s): Gardens & Gardening MIDNGHT LOON Poem Text First Line: Burglars enter an apartment and ransack drawers; Subject(s): Crime & Criminals MIRACLES First Line: His lens misses her Last Line: Is no longer his wife. Subject(s): Photography & Photographers MISTAKING WATER HEMLOCK FOR PARSLEY Poem Text Last Line: To the floor, die of a ruptured aorta Subject(s): Death; Suicide MOENKOPI First Line: Your father had gangrene and Last Line: Out of sand, barren sand. Subject(s): Poisons And Poisoning; Pollution MORNING ANTLERS Poem Text Subject(s): Morninb MORNING SHUTTERS First Line: We extend arms Last Line: With the lost years. Subject(s): Desire MUSHROOM HUNTING IN THE JEMEZ MOUNTAINS First Line: Walking in a mountain meadow toward the north slope Last Line: And hear them vanish in the white-pored silence. Subject(s): Mushrooms; Morels NEW WAVE First Line: He listens to a punk rock group Last Line: Due to the effects of listening to agent orange. Subject(s): Adolescence; Music & Musicians; Parents; Teen Agers; Parenthood NOAH'S/DOVE First Line: The moon is black Last Line: For the first time... Subject(s): Nature NORTH TO TAOS First Line: The aspen twig Last Line: The boat is moored to sky. Subject(s): Boats; Nature; West (u.s.); Southwest; Pacific States NOTHING CAN HEAL THE SEVERED NERVES OF A HAND? Poem Text OLIVE NIGHT First Line: The jemez / indians mention the los ojos bar Last Line: Summer night. Subject(s): Night; Violence; Bedtime OOLONG First Line: Tea leaves wilted in sunlight are shaken Last Line: Along a rice-paper screen. Subject(s): Food & Eating; Tea ORACLE-BONE SCRIPT First Line: In oracle-bone script, the character for attunement Last Line: In air, know frost shrivels the leaves into black bits OX-HEAD DOT First Line: Ox-head dot, wasp waist, mouse tail Last Line: Glowing moths loosed into air, air %rippling, roiling the surface of the world PARALLAX First Line: Kwakwha / askwali Last Line: Whenever, wherever. Subject(s): Hopi Indians; Native Americans; Indians Of America; American Indians; Indians Of South America PENTIMENTO First Line: In sepia, I draw a face and hands Last Line: In a moment of grace. Subject(s): Paintings And Painters PIG'S HEAVEN INN Poem Text Subject(s): China; Country Life PIRANHAS First Line: Piranhas / in a wine-dark river Last Line: River. Subject(s): Oppression POUILLY-FUISSE First Line: Foxes and pheasants adorn Last Line: Leeks and roses. Subject(s): Poverty QUIPU: 1 First Line: I try to see a bald eagle nest in a douglas fir Last Line: Ensuring loss salamanders the body, lagoons the mind QUIPU: 2 First Line: Here a red horse leaned over a barbed wire fence Last Line: And suddenly when he opens his eyes, he cannot hear QUIPU: 3 First Line: Who touched a quipu and made it explode into dust? Last Line: Whose carded cotton fibers are these? QUIPU: 4 First Line: 7:14: red numbers on the clock incarnadine the time Last Line: He is startled to hear a cricket chirp in the fireplace QUIPU: 5 First Line: When he opened the book to the page with quipu Last Line: Stand hip deep in halibut, cleaning them off QUIPU: 6 First Line: Who has heard a flute carved from the wing bone of a crane? Last Line: Who has heard a flute carved from the wing bone of a crane? QUIPU: 7 First Line: Crows pick at a dead buffalo along the curve Last Line: The scent of hoary rosemarymint in the air QUIPU: 8 First Line: I close my eyes-see fishhooks and nylon threads Last Line: Where-fishhook joy-the mind is new each day QUIPU: 9 First Line: We bend to enter a cave at tsankawi, inadvertently Last Line: Of seconds where heat shimmered and vanished into air RED OCTOPUS First Line: She folds the four corners into the center Last Line: Inflates the body of the octopus. Subject(s): China; China - Red Guards REDSHIFTING WEB: 1 First Line: The dragons on the back of a circular bronze mirror Last Line: And as moments coalesce see to travel far is to return. REDSHIFTING WEB: 2 First Line: A cochineal picker goes blind; Last Line: The yellow pupils of a saw-whet owl. REDSHIFTING WEB: 3 First Line: The gold shimmer at the beginning of summer Last Line: Resells them as sterilized new ones to hospitals. REDSHIFTING WEB: 4 First Line: Absorb a corpse-like silence and be a brass Last Line: The slumlord dusted the floor with roach powder. REDSHIFTING WEB: 5 First Line: Moored off qingdao, before sunrise, Last Line: I drop a jar of mustard, and it shatters in a wave. REDSHIFTING WEB: 6 First Line: The smell of roasted chili; Last Line: Yucca fiber and turkey-feather blanket. REDSHIFTING WEB: 7 First Line: He looks at a series of mirrors: warring states, Last Line: In mind they flow and respond endlessly. REDSHIFTING WEB: 9 First Line: Pausing in the motion of a stroke, Last Line: 1054, a supernova. RESHIFTING WEB: 8 First Line: I find a rufous humming bird on the floor Last Line: In curved space, is a line a circle? SHOOTING STAR Poem Text First Line: In a concussion / the mind severs the pain Last Line: Shooting star. Subject(s): Calligraphy; Life; Violence SHUTTLE First Line: She is making stuffing for the turkey Last Line: As he watches the snow fall and fall. Subject(s): Cities; Urban Life SIX PERSIMMONS First Line: Carbon, rings in his ears as he walks down Last Line: Their fingertips glow in the skin of their days. Subject(s): Death; Desire; Nature; Dead, The SLANTING LIGHT Poem Text First Line: Slanting light casts onto a stucco wall Last Line: Death as the stark light sifts the branches of the plum. Subject(s): Death; Light; Dead, The SLIDING AWAY First Line: Your hand rigid, curled into its final shape Last Line: Sliding away. Subject(s): Death; Nature; Dead, The SOUND LAG First Line: His glazed lips / moved slower Last Line: Into the living world. Subject(s): Imagination; Fancy SPLASH, FLOW Poem Text First Line: The unerring tragedy of our lives is to sail Last Line: As you hold the woman you love in your arms. Subject(s): Life SPRING SNOW Poem Text First Line: A spring snow coincides with plum blossoms Last Line: In memory people outline bodies on walls. Subject(s): Atomic Bomb - Victims; Nuclear War; Atomic Bomb; Hydrogen Bomb STRAWBERRIES IN WOODEN BOWLS Poem Text First Line: You carry flowers in a jug of green wine Last Line: Are half-covered with curdled milk. Subject(s): Change; Nature STREAMERS Poem Text First Line: As an archaeologist unearths a mask with opecular teeth SYZYGY Poem Text First Line: I notice headlights out the living room window Subject(s): Mind, The SYZYGY First Line: I notice headlights out the living room window Last Line: Passions of a day begin to straighten, align, hum TEN THOUSAND TO ONE Poem Text First Line: The phoenicians guarded a recipe that required Last Line: Hanging, at the tip. Subject(s): Nature; Science; Scientists THE ANSEL ADAMS CARD First Line: You left a trail of bad checks in forty-six states Last Line: Against a forest, one aspen bright in the sun. Subject(s): Con Artists; Prisons & Prisoners THE APHRODISIAC Poem Text First Line: Power is my aphrodisiac Last Line: Before a grenade explodes. Subject(s): Conspiracy; Politics; Violence; War; Politicians; Political Poetry THE AXIS First Line: I hear on the radio that anastasio somoza Last Line: And the others appear infinite. Subject(s): History; Knowledge; Historians THE CHANCE Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: The blue-black mountains are etched Last Line: Us, we have a chance, briefly, to shine. Subject(s): Passion THE CLOUD CHAMBER First Line: A neighbor / rejects chemotherapy and the hospital Last Line: Is immortal. Subject(s): Mortality THE COMMENT OF CREATION Poem Text First Line: A painter indicates the time of day Subject(s): Creation THE CORNUCOPIA First Line: Grapes grow up a difficult and Last Line: Drifting at night in the sea. Subject(s): Italy; Nature; Italians THE CORONA First Line: Knife-edge / days and shimmering nights Last Line: Makes us pause and move on. Subject(s): Fire; Parents; Parenthood THE DIAMOND POINT First Line: Use the diamond point of grief Last Line: Incise a clear hibiscus in the windowpane. Subject(s): Grief; Loss; Sorrow; Sadness THE EXECUTION OF MAXIMILIAN First Line: Muskets triggered a white smoke Last Line: Like friends long unseen, now returned. Subject(s): Capital Punishment; Maximilian, Emperor Of Mexico (1832-67); Hanging; Executions; Death Penalty THE FLOWER PATH First Line: Down to this north end of the verandah, across the view Last Line: An actor walks off the flower-path ramp cross-eyed amid shouts. Subject(s): Japan; Japanese THE GIFT Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: The pieces of this jigsaw puzzle Subject(s): Jigsaw Puzzles THE GIRL IN WHITE STOCKINGS Poem Text THE GREAT WHITE SHARK Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: For days he has dumped a trail of tuna blood Last Line: The seasons are not yet human forms of desire. Subject(s): Death; Desire; Dead, The THE HALIBUT First Line: Dipping spruce branches into the calm water Last Line: Rising a two-hundred-pound halibut with bulging eyes. Subject(s): Fish & Fishing THE LEAVES OF A DREAM ARE THE LEAVES OF AN ONION Poem Text First Line: Red oak leaves rustle in the wind THE LIGATURE Poem Text First Line: Some days are zigzags through a mine field; Subject(s): Conduct Of Life THE LOS ALAMOS MUSEUM First Line: In this museum is a replica of little boy and fat man. In Last Line: Speed of light, but you can see it here in slow motion. Subject(s): Hiroshima, Japan; Museums; Nagasaki, Japan; Nuclear War; Art Gallerys; Atomic Bomb; Hydrogen Bomb THE MOMENT OF CREATION Poem Text First Line: A painter indicates the time of day Last Line: A floor of jade, obsidian, turquoise, ebony, lapis. Subject(s): Art & Artists; Creation THE MOON IS A DIAMOND First Line: Flavio gonzales, seventy-two, made jackhammer Last Line: "is a diamond." Subject(s): Old Age; Poetry & Poets THE MURMUR Poem Text First Line: The doctor flicks on a light Last Line: Red and green and indigo. Subject(s): Birth; Children; Medicine; Parents; Child Birth; Midwifery; Childhood; Drugs, Prescription; Parenthood THE NEGATIVE Poem Text First Line: A man hauling coal in the street is stilled forever. Last Line: Lovers in the summer palace park. Subject(s): Time; Social Commentaries THE NETWORK First Line: In 1861, george hew sailed in a rowboat Last Line: The sound barrier and shatters glass. Subject(s): History; Historians THE OLIVE GROVE Poem Text First Line: Up on the hill Last Line: Rinsed in the moonshine. Subject(s): Nature THE OPAL Poem Text First Line: Nailing up chicken wire on the frame house Last Line: Adobe wall -- are facets of a cut opal. Subject(s): Carpenters THE OWL First Line: The path was purple in the dusk Last Line: May light. Subject(s): Birds; Owls THE PULSE First Line: A woman in a psychiatric ward Last Line: In the acequia never returns. Subject(s): Insanity; Madness; Mental Illness THE REDSHIFTING WEB Poem Text First Line: The dragons on the back of a circular bronze mirror Last Line: 1054, a supernova. THE REHEARSAL First Line: Xylophone, triangle, marimba, soprano, violin Last Line: When what you want is no longer possible. Subject(s): Desire; Music & Musicians THE SHAPES OF LEAVES Poem Text First Line: Ginkgo, cottonwood, pin oak, sweet gum, tulip tree Last Line: I am living at the edge of a new leaf. Subject(s): Leaves THE SILENCE First Line: We walk through a yellow-ocher adobe house Last Line: Water is, taking the shape of the container. Subject(s): Decay; Houses; Silence; Rot; Decadence THE SILK ROAD First Line: The blood in your arteries is contaminated with sugar Last Line: Reflected deflected my intention as now I say now. Subject(s): Death; Dead, The THE SILVER TRADE First Line: You will hammer silver into a heart Last Line: And throw them behind the mountain. Subject(s): Crucifixion; Judas Iscariot (d. 30 A.d.); Jesus Christ - Crucifixion THE SOLDERER First Line: I watch a man soldering positive and negative speaker Last Line: Die suspended in air like gold dust flecked by sunlight. Subject(s): Death; Dead, The THE STRING DIAMOND First Line: An apricot blossom opens to five petals Last Line: Sensing in slow seconds the tilt of the milky way. Subject(s): Grief; Metamorphosis; Sorrow; Sadness THE TAOIST PAINTER First Line: He begins with charcoal and outlines Last Line: The leaves drift to their death. Subject(s): Paintings And Painters; Taoism THE THERMOS First Line: Poppy seeds from a north bennington garden Subject(s): Children; Parents; Childhood; Parenthood THE UNNAMABLE RIVER Poem Text First Line: Is it in the anthracite face of a coal miner Last Line: Of an avocado blossom, and in the true passion of a kiss. Subject(s): Life; Perception THE WAKING First Line: Blue plums in the pewter bowl Last Line: I breathe moths in my cupped hands. Subject(s): Sleep; Waking THE WEATHER SHIFTS First Line: Unemployed. I recollect setting a plumb Last Line: Sings, somewhere, out in the junipers. Subject(s): January; Weather THE WOOD WHITTLER First Line: Whales and fish Last Line: Witless earth. Subject(s): Carving (arts); Nature THERMODYNAMICS First Line: He pours hot water into a cup, stirs the powdered Last Line: Down a few last black specks at the bottom of the cup THERMOS First Line: Poppy seeds from a north bennington garden Last Line: Smell your hair and how we quicken each other Subject(s): Children; Parents THREE A.M., IN WINTER First Line: When I went to zuni Last Line: I touch sparks, I fly. Subject(s): Travel; West (u.s.); Journeys; Trips; Southwest; Pacific States THROWING SALT ON A PATH First Line: I watch you throw salt on the path Last Line: Expands the edges of the universe. Subject(s): Salt TO A COMPOSER First Line: Red chair, blue chair, white chair, big chair, chair Last Line: Become a style of living. Subject(s): Composers; Music & Musicians TSANKAWI First Line: The men hiked on a loop trail Last Line: "you live, I live, we live." Subject(s): Marriage; Native Americans; Weddings; Husbands; Wives; Indians Of America; American Indians; Indians Of South America WANG WEI First Line: At my window Last Line: The moon. Subject(s): China - Tang Dynasty (618-905); Poetry & Poets WHITEOUT First Line: You expect to see swirling chunks of ice Last Line: "no shooting from here."" but ""here"" is ""there." Subject(s): Ice WRITTEN THE DAY I WAS TO BEGIN A RESIDENCY AT THE STATE PENITENTIARY First Line: Inmates put an acetylene torch to another inmate's face Last Line: "are ""an ice cube's chance in hell." Subject(s): Beckett, Samuel (1906-1989); Prisons & Prisoners X AND O First Line: Someone flips a lit match off the road Last Line: Time you push through a turnstile X RAY First Line: In my mind a lilac begins to leaf Last Line: A luna moth opening its wings. Subject(s): Nature |
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