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Go, Litel Bok

Ladies and Gentlemen, members of the jury.

Those of my trade, we are like the badger or the mole.

We work alone in darkness, guided by tiny

candles which we do not share, sweating to give birth

to replacement planets where things happen which don't.

And sometimes the hard jigsaw becomes a picture

and not a car accident. More rarely we place

our fingers adroitly on the frets or keyboard

and multitudes plummet through the small white trapdoor

which bears our hieroglyphs. Then we are taken up

into the blaze and shout of the conurbations

to make words in the air and strike the strange pose

from the clothing catalogue. But sometimes we see

a swallow in wintertime. And the talking horse

and the sad girl and the village under the sea

descend like stars into a land of long evenings

and radically different vegetables

and a flex is run from our hearts into the hearts

of those who do not know the meanings of the words

cardigan and sleet. And there is no finer pudding.

Now I am like that cow in the nursery rhyme.

The fire I have felt beneath your shirts. This surprisingly large

slab of Perspex. Your hands are on me. But this man

is another man. The clock chimes, my pumpkin waits

and the frog drums his gloved fingers on the dashboard.

May the god whose thoughts are like a tent of white light

above the laundry and the pigeons of this town

walk always by your side. My burrow calls. Good night.

-Mark Haddon

Posted by Jim Walsh at January 25, 2007 9:42 PM

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