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2003-10-23 - 9:48 a.m. Do you ever rediscover poets. Or just poetry in general? I haven't read any poetry in months. Maybe a year. And for some reason I felt compelled to pick up a Russian poet whose collection I found on my shelves. I'm not sure why. The funny thing is... I used to be so passionate for this guy's works.. and now I can't remember exactly what drew me to him. I look at the pages I turned down in the anthology trying to remember what I saw in those words and I don't get it. I did find this one though that calls to me now: from New York Elegy To S. Mitman At night, in New York's Central Park, chilled to the bone and belonging to no one, I talked quietly with America: both of us were weary of speeches. I talked with my footsteps-- unlike words, they do not lie-- and I was answered with circles dead leaves uttered, falling onto a pond. Snow was falling, sliding embarrassed past bars where noisiness never ceases, settling tinted on the swollen neon veins on the city's sleepless brow, on the incessant smile of a candidate who was trying, not without difficulty, to get in somewhere, I don't remember just where, and to the snow it didn't matter where. But in the Park it fell undisturbed: the snowflakes descended cautiously onto the softly sinking leaves, soggy multicolored floats; onto a pink and tremulous balloon childishly fastened with chewing gum to the trunk of an evergreen and sleepily rubbing its cheek against the sky; onto someone's forgotten glove, onto the zoo, which had shown its guests out, onto the bench with its wistful legend: PLACE FOR LOST CHILDREN. Yevgeny Yevtushenko
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