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"Spellbound"

By James RichardsonPosted Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2004, at 7:12 AM ET

Listen to James Richardson reading this poem.


And what of the child Bad Magic
clanged shut in a bluebird,
who sat half-lit in the re-leafing arbor,
listening for his old name in the family hubbub,
who meant to cry out ... but seedflash, hammer of wings ...
couldn't hold to his dream,
small and quick as a spark, of having been
a child once? Who couldn't see into those windows,
quick as sparks, where slowly they still played,
who meant ... but shrill, but two flights twined
outflinging ... And sometimes in the clatter
of coffee on the lawn, their voices lowering
and slowed (that he could not tell
from landslide, from preliminary thunder),
they would seem to speak of him
something ... but it was years
and he meant, but too-swift heart,
flit like forget and South like a soft downstairs,
and something sang him something flew him away ...



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James Richardson's most recent books are How Things Are and Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays. He teaches at Princeton University.
Click here 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.
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