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In Hoaka, there was a s like blown ash, and he drank the tears froan The tears were rosy and thin, like a girl’s perfume

In the city of Las you ever saw, and she drank the tears of a sleeping hoopoe, and the tears were soft and fine, like the hair of children

In Irsil, there was a butterfly with no wings at all, ith her very last strength drank the tears fro sparrow The tears were spicy and thick, but they did her no good

In Kash, there was a , and he drank the tears of a sleeping phoenix, which were molten white, like a blade not yet born

In Uri veils, and he laid them over the eyes of the dead He drank frofisher The tears were red as apple skins, and blue as ht

In Nahara, there was a reens and reds and blues She drank the tears fro loon The tears were black and thick, like an ebony sill

And in Varaahasind, there was a s like a hundred otherpeacock The tears were blue and green and gold, like the skin of a snake, and his name was Fahad, and he came to this , his belly full of tears

What do the birds dreaht have asked, but they are quick to eat, and not to converse Instead we flutter over the face of the world, in every dusty pocket and lantern halo, and drink their grief, and taste their s that fall frorass, terrible strands of yolk flung froh seeds in the winter, falcons with claws that snatch, fish which are too clever by half—ah! We have known these sorrows! But once in a long while there are the flavors of otherthere It took all the tears I have ht the to a thousand proboscises like diamond necklaces, to the cistern at the center of Ilinistan, the City of Insects, which is a place you are not permitted to know There is fla, and hich do not tear, and rivers of sugar water trickling through old, and not for the hungry mouths of men There antsrare

There are so ine

And in the center of Ilinistan, there is a cistern, where the ants and the beetles and the termites hollowed a stuht be proud to write upon its walls as though it were the finest paper, save that the stranger should be pro while, the drinkers of tears commune there, to understand the sorrow of the birds, who are also not permitted to know the way to Ilinistan So we let our tears fall, one by one, blue by white by red by green by yellow, into the cistern, until it is full to bri, and we can look in its waters and see the shape of the thing that the birds mourn

In the cistern, oh lady, oh Star, oh lost and lonely thing, I saw your face, and knew that your course would pass under the ground, where only the woro, to whatever pale, blind city they call their own, and which I am not permitted to know

THE TALE

OF THE LEAF

AND THE SNAKE,

CONTINUED