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Cordelia Hanemann
The Old Mill Place
homage to Robert Penn Warren
Planes of water shift
in icy light--mill pond mirrors
the edge of autumn--ochre, lake,
madder, sienna--leaf by leaf,
still in sky and still in pool,
upside down and rightside up.
Water licks the old stonework
of truss and dam, greened in moss,
mill long rotted away, its struts
and boards fallen one by one to dust
and measured time.
All is gone--grand old wheel,
careless boys who played there,
white and thin, chill bodies,
echoes of bare-chested dares,
grown old, moved on.
In the inbetween of dusk and night,
a breeze picks up to toss innocent
leaves, a lonely rustle and final
golden snowfall drifts softly down,
swirls in little eddies
before slowly sailing away.
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