I’ve expanded like the swollen door in summer
to fit my own dimension. Your loneliness
is a letter I read and put away, a daily reminder
in the cry of the magpie that I am
still capable of inflicting pain
at this distance.
Like a painting, our talk is dense with description,
half-truths, landscapes, phrases layered
with a patina over time. When she came into my life
I didn’t hesitate.
Prosaic miles of streets stretch all round,
Astir with restless, hurried life and spanned
By arches that with thund’rous trains resound,
And throbbing wires that galvanize the land;
Gin-palaces in tawdry splendor stand;
The newsboys shriek of mangled bodies found;
The last burlesque is playing in the Strand—
In modern prose all poetry seems drowned.
Yet in ten thousand homes this April night
An ancient People celebrates its birth
To Freedom, with a reverential mirth,
With customs quaint and many a hoary rite,
