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Dusk

where is the name no one answered to

gone off to live by itself

beneath the pine trees separating houses

without a friend or a bed

without a father to tell it stories

how hard was the path it walked on

all those years  belonging to none

of our struggles  drifting under

the calendar page elusive as

residue  when someone said

how have you been  it was

strangely that name that tried

to answer

from TransferFind it in the library

Copyright © BOA Editions, Ltd 2011
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of BOA Editions LTD.

Published in Naomi Shihab Nye Poems

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Idaho Humanities Council, a State-based program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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