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Poet's Choice

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and violin. At nightfall,

we turn lights on, Yeti.

Up here it's neither moon nor earth.

Tears freeze.

Oh Yeti, semi-moonman,

turn back, think again!

I called this to the Yeti

inside four walls of avalanche,

stomping my feet for warmth

on the everlasting

snow.

The Yeti, like the Mapinguary, is, among other things, a form of human autobiography, wistful and lonesome, as well as scary.

(Wislawa Szymborska's poem can be found in "View with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems," translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh. Harcourt Brace. Copyright 1962, 1967, by Panstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, Warszawa. Copyright 1975, 1976, by Czytelnik, Warszawa. Copyright 1985 by Wislawa Szymborska, Warszawa. Copyright 1993 by Wislawa Szymborska. Copyright 1995 by Harcourt Brace.)

Robert Pinsky was poet laureate of the United States

from 1997 through 2000.

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