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A talk for Lent, it was casually announced,
Out of the blue, on the car radio: 'And now,
A talk for Lent,' precisely enounced,
To make it feel expected, as though somehow
Lent was one with time, and all this motion
Going nowhere, mere dalliance with the wheel,
Marking time with gear-shifts, self-promotion
Suspended, like some prophecy encased in steel,
The temporality fleshed even as we sit,
As the archbishop speaks: the theme is Christ's
Words: 'It is finished'; and what he makes of it,
A quarter of an hour, sustaining interest,
Finishes too; as soon, it now commences
As meaning: death a life thus recompenses. |
