Star

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All the way north on the train the sun 
followed me followed me without moving 
still the sun of that other morning
when we had gone over Come on over 
men at the screen door said to my father 
You have to see this it’s an ape bring 
the little boy bring the boy along

so he brought me along to the field
of dry grass hissing behind the houses 
in the heat that morning and there was 
nothing else back there but the empty day 
above the grass waving as far away
as I could see and the sight burned my eyes 
white birds were flying off beyond us

and a raised floor of boards like a house 
with no house on it part way out there 
was shining by itself a color
of shadow and the voices of the men
were smaller in the field as we walked on 
something was standing out there on the floor 
the men kept saying Come on over

it’s on a chain and my father said
to me Don’t get too close I saw it was 
staring down at each of our faces
one after the other as though it might 
catch sight of something in one of them
that it remembered I stood watching its eyes 
as they turned away from each of us

© William Stanley Merwin