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birth-day

today we are possible.

the morning, green and laundry-sweet,

opens itself and we enter

blind and mewling.

everything waits for us:

the snow kingdom

sparkling and silent

in its glacial cap,

the cane fields

shining and sweet

in the sun-drenched south.

as the day arrives

with all its clumsy blessings

what we will become

waits in us like an ache.

from The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton: 1965-2010Find it in the library

Copyright © BOA Editions, Ltd 2012
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of BOA Editions LTD.

Published in Lucille Clifton Poems

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