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Poetry of Eli Siegel

And There Are New Smiles; New Smiles

These were smiles, and now after the coming and going of many suns (the coming and going sun, always with us, always) new smiles are, and how new frowns, how new smiles; new people.

With the coming and going of suns, or a sun—one can be used—new smiles; new joys; new silences; new longings; new griefs; with the coming and going of a sun, new ideas.

O, there, a lady and a man, a way of saying a girl and a man, ate smiling and frowning these days, and doing things smiling and frowning.

Where once other boys and girls were, other persons, other things were, now new smiles are.

O, going of many suns; O many reddenings of skies; O, otherness now; there, grief again, a world with us something like the world talked of once.

There, ladies and men, we have with us a newly smiling and frowning world, made up, much of it, of planning, feeling, paining, longing boys and girls.

Skies still redden.

Skies still wane.

And there are new smiles; new smiles.

From Hail, American Development (Definition Press)
© 1968 by Eli Siegel

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