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Carl Phillips

Carl Philips was born on July 23, 1959, into a military family in Everett, Washington. His father’s job in the Air Force kept the family moving within the U.S. during his childhood. In his high-school years the family

Little Closer Though, If You Can, for What Got Lost Here, A

by Carl Phillips (b. 1959)

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15

             Other than that, all was still — a quiet
so quiet that, as if silence were a kind of spell, and
words the way to break it, they began speaking.
             They spoke of many things:
sunset as a raft leaving the water in braids behind it;
detachment, the soul, obedience;
swans rowing at nightfall across a sky filled with snow;
what did they wish they could see, that they used to see;
to mean no harm, or to not especially, just now, be looking for it;

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