“They begin!

The perfections are sharpened

The flower spreads its colored petals wide in the sun

But the tongue of the bee misses them

They sink back into the loam crying out

—you may call it a cry

that creeps over them, a shiver as they wilt and disappear ”

—William Carlos Williams, Paterson

“Born down in a dead man’s town. ”

—Bruce Springsteen