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Poet's |
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Frowning, he leaned his rake against the shed, removing his cap, turned to the tall trees back of his house. "How about it?" he asked. "Once and for all now. How come we're here?" A faint wind replied from the top branches. A yellow leaf fell.
"I mean," he began again, "this watching over us stuff--do you do that?" The wind stilled. A crow high in a nearby pine commented "Caw, caw, caw!"
He considered that, at length continued, "And that other business about Him, you know?
"Was he really your son? I mean, anymore than any of us? Is he coming again? He's been coming for a long time now."
A blue jay interjected: "Thief! Thief!" and the cicadas, misunderstanding, buzzed indignantly.
He considered these and other answers, the ones he'd heard so often before, reflected again on what they might mean.
At last, picking up his rake, he started again pulling fallen leaves and hickory nuts into the growing pile beneath the pine. Finished, he pushed back his hat, sighed, said: "Well, I guess that settles that."
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