From Rafael Alberti
Consider:
For they sleep with a countryman’s air,
With the vulnerable look of the animal–these stark ones, inured
To whatever the dream may appoint them, or cozen them toward,
Tirelessly, sooner or later, like shepherd dogs there.
Over their sufferance, as over a land’s depredation
Stricken with hoofprints, a country of withering bone,
The bite of a wheel and the slackening sound of rotation
Spins from their pupils asleep, estranged and alone.
They sleep; and their hands that are fist-blows, unhuddle,
An instant unlearning their calling, the marches and numbers,
While their counter-existences stand in the void of the puddle-
And even the rifle gives over its office, and slumbers.
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