A Bit of Gertrude Stein Inaccurately Remembered
Vide the sea eagle.
He dives on a flock of starlings.
His only chance
is to select one, just one –
not the plumpest, or tastiest looking,
the stupidest or apparently slowest -
No just one.
A singleton in the many –
that’s how it’s done:
obsessed, acid-etched focus.
But then exactitude is exactly exactitude
and shutters shut and shutters shut;
for Napoleon is Napoleon
and the sea crashes under quite indif
-ferent;
crashes, fills and drains,
offering now and then a green wall of glass,
and behind it shoals of silver tunny.
History teaches
a sudden glimpse may be allowed –
but I’ve not experienced it
exactly exactly.
Page(s) 24
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