<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><span></span></div><div>City Psalm<div><br></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3">The killings continue, each second<span style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'"><br>
</span>pain and misfortune extend themselves<span style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'"><br>
</span>in the genetic chain, injustice is done knowingly, and the air<span style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'"><br>
</span>bears the dust of decayed hopes,<span style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'"><br>
</span>yet breathing those fumes, walking the thronged<span style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'"><br>
</span>pavements among crippled lives, jackhammers<span style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'"><br>
</span>raging, a parking lot painfully agleam<span style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'"><br>
</span>in the May sun, I have seen<span style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'"><br>
</span>not behind but within, within the<span style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'"><br>
</span>dull grief, blown grit, hideous<span style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'"><br>
</span>concrete facades, another grief, a gleam<span style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'"><br>
</span>as of dew, an abode of mercy,<span style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'"><br>
</span>have heard not behind but within noise<span style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'"><br>
</span>a humming that drifted into a quiet smile.<span style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'"><br>
</span>Nothing was changed, all was revealed otherwise;<span style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'"><br>
</span>not that horror was not, not that killings did not continue,<span style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'"><br>
</span>but that as if transparent all disclosed<span style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'"><br>
</span>an otherness that was blessed, that was bliss.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3"><span style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'"><br>
</span><i>I saw Paradise in the dust of the street.</i> </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3"><br></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3"> - Denise Levertov</font></div></div>
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