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“Continual Conversation With A Silent Man” by Wallace Stevens 🇺🇸 (2 Oct 1879 – 2 Aug 1955)
The old brown hen and the old blue sky,
Between the two we live and die—
The broken cartwheel on the hill.
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As if, in the presence of the sea,
We dried our nets and mended sail
And talked of never-ending things,
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Of the never-ending storm of will,
One will and many wills, and the wind,
Of many meanings in the leaves,
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Brought down to one below the eaves,
Link, of that tempest, to the farm,
The chain of the turquoise hen and sky
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And the wheel that broke as the cart went by.
It is not a voice that is under the eaves.
It is not speech, the sound we hear
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In this conversation, but the sound
Of things and their motion: the other man,
A turquoise monster moving round.