Joe Donahue (Joseph Donahue of Duke University in North Carolina and the literary constellation Lowelliana) has a poem in the Dec. 24 issue of The Nation magazine, one of the few remaining nationally distributed publications that regularly make room for poets–and thus a fantastic location for widespread viewing of literary compositions. I’m a subscriber, so I’m taking the liberty of sharing the poem with our readers—otherwise you would not be able to access it online. — PM.
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Back
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Chuang Tzu
asked the skull: what
do you want?
The skull
said: to be
rushing among
all those
who seem
still tumbling
from bed, to shower,
to street, to work,
hair still wet.
The river wind
must feel even fresher
for them,
a cold crown
to their
thoughts,
as they marvel
at the day’s news
about minerals
found on meteorites…
I want to be,
the skull said,
back in New York.
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—Joseph Donahue
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