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The visionary moment comes

just as it is raining , just as bombs

are falling,  just as atoms

burst like a sneeze in a city park

and enter the dark

as if  it were the waiting ark.

You open your hand and blow

the dust. You pick and throw

the stone. You make the round  O

of  your mouth perfect as light

and the tree bends and stands upright

in the stolid night.

Source: Poetry (February 2008).

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MORE FROM THIS ISSUE

This poem originally appeared in the February 2008 issue of Poetry magazine

• Midsummer
  by Louise Glück
• Letter to the Editor
  by Adam Zagajewski
• An Old Woman’s Painting
  by Lynn Emanuel

• February 2008 Table of Contents
• Subscribe to Poetry magazine
• About Poetry magazine
• Buy This Issue

More about this poem

Biography

George Szirtes was born in Hungary and emigrated to England with his parents—survivors of concentration and labor camps—after the 1956 Budapest uprising.

Szirtes studied painting at Harrow School of Art and Leeds College of Art and Design. At Leeds he studied with Martin Bell, who encouraged Szirtes as he began to develop his poetic themes: an engaging mix of British individualism and European fluency in myth, fairy tale, and . . .

Continue reading this biography

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Poems by George Szirtes

• Doisneau: Underground Press
• Kertész: Latrine
• Kolár: Housing Estate
• Petersen: Kleichen and a Man
• Ross: Children of the Ghetto

• More poems by George Szirtes (6 poems)
  • Ross: Yellow Star

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Poem Categorization

SUBJECT Nature, Social Commentaries, War & Conflict

POET’S REGION England

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Related

Audio

• Poem of the Day: My Fathers, Coming and Going
• Poem of the Day: Petersen: Kleichen and a Man
• Poem of the Day: Ross: Children of the Ghetto
• The Poetry Magazine Podcast: When Guns Talk the Muses Fall Silent

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