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"Romance"

Listen to Stanley Moss reading this poem.

I was not Eros with a limp, or sleepwalking,
even so on a December Sunday afternoon
sunning itself on a footbridge that was three planks
over a meandering dry stream,
I saw a small green snake that was perhaps a year
twist away at the first sight of me into the tall reeds
of the future—with time enough to found a nation.
I crossed the same planks, the heavy serpent
of old age oozed along behind me.
The sunlight on the bridge and the two snakes
were a sundial beyond the indications
of the world's Christian calendar.
Then I passed green fields of winter rye,
already six inches high despite the early snow.
I whispered to myself:
Verde que te quiero verde. Verde viento.
Green, how I love you green. Green wind.
Child, follow the heart, follow the heart!

 
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Stanley Moss will publish God Breaketh Not All Men's Hearts Alike: Later Collected Poems in 2011.

Clickhere to visit Robert Pinsky's Favorite Poem Project site.To submit poetry to Slate, send up to five poems and a self-addressed, stamped envelope to: Robert Pinsky, Slate Magazine, Boston University, 236 Bay State Road, Boston, MA, 02215.