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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gary Soto
Gary Soto
Born in Fresno, California, in February, 1952, to working-class Mexican-American parents, Gary Soto is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including New and Selected Poems (1995), which was a National Book Award finalist...
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Looking Around, Believing  
by Gary Soto

How strange that we can begin at any time.
With two feet we get down the street.
With a hand we undo the rose.
With an eye we lift up the peach tree
And hold it up to the wind —  white blossoms
At our feet. Like today. I started
In the yard with my daughter,
With my wife poking at a potted geranium,
And now I am walking down the street,
Amazed that the sun is only so high,
Just over the roof, and a child
Is singing through a rolled newspaper
And a terrier is leaping like a flea
And at the bakery I pass, a palm,
Like a suctioning starfish, is pressed
To the window. We're keeping busy — 
This way, that way, we're making shadows
Where sunlight was, making words
Where there was only noise in the trees.



"Looking Around, Believing," from New and Selected Poems by Gary Soto. Copyright © 1995 by Gary Soto. Used by permission of Chronicle Books.
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