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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
DESERT, by PATRICK JOHN MCALISTER ANDERSON Poet Analysis First Line: Hereabouts is desert, it's a bad county Last Line: Adding and subtracting itself for ever and ever. Subject(s): Deserts; Food & Eating; Time | |||
Hereabouts is desert, it's a bad country, grows nothing, nothing to show for, sand has no whereabouts, goes everywhere and nowhere like a sea: yes, I said, and noticed the flash of sun on grit and knew that all the hourglasses in the world had broken and this was the sum of all the hours of the world. Did you ever see a man bleed in sand? I asked him, did you ever see a soldier, a khaki hero with his life blood blotting entirely and quickly into the khaki sand? Did you ever see a man drown in quicksand or, let alone a man, a tree or a bedstead? It's not just that there's so much of it, he said, nor the bitter heat of it nor its blinding glare but it's the shiftlessness, that there's no purpose here, nothing but a blanket warming a blanket, or a sum multiplying and dividing itself forever, a sum adding and subtracting itself for ever and ever. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ELEVEN EYES: FINAL SECTION by LYN HEJINIAN THE FATALIST: COME OCTOBER by LYN HEJINIAN THE FATALIST: HOME by LYN HEJINIAN THE FATALIST: TIME IS FILLED by LYN HEJINIAN SLOWLY: I FREQUENTLY SLOWLY WISH by LYN HEJINIAN ALL THE DIFFICULT HOURS AND MINUTES by JANE HIRSHFIELD A DAY IS VAST by JANE HIRSHFIELD FROM THIS HEIGHT by TONY HOAGLAND CAPITAL SQUARE by PATRICK JOHN MCALISTER ANDERSON |
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