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PASTORAL

Sun moved but the planet stayed still.

As always everyone could see it.

Things beyond intervention were divine.

Fictions were answered by round vowels.

Brass dogs howled our books upright.

In a distraction the mistress appeared 

swaddled in a white robe thick as snow

though July was well advanced

as shown by the aphid plagued roses

There were additional comforts.

Carved swallows suspended from a chime. 

Spiders tying the trees together. 

The quivering hillsides in bloom.

A siren so faint it was no emergency.