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---
title: Serengeti
genre: verse

id: serengeti
toc: "Serengeti"

project:
    title: Elegies for alternate selves
    class: elegies
    order: 20
    prev:
    - title: The mountain
      link: mountain
    next:
    - title: The shipwright
      link: shipwright
...

| The self is a serengeti
| a wide grassland with baobab trees
| reaching their roots deep into earth
| like a child into a clay pot
| A wind blows there or seems to blow
| if he holds it up to his ear the air shifts
| like stones in a stream uncovering a crawfish
| it finds another hiding place watching you
| Its eyes are blacker than wind
| on the serengeti they are the [eyes of a predator][formal]
| they are coming toward you or receding
| a storm cloud builds on the horizon
| Are you [running][] toward the rain or away from it
| Do you stand still and crouch hoping for silence

[formal]: onformalpoetry.html
[running]: squirrel.html