Tuesday, March 17, 2015

As you come over the hill

 We have been driving across the USA foe many years now. 
It always makes me think about all the other lives of people I haven't met. 
Both these photos were taken from our car-in-motion last October,

As You Come Over the Hill


You’ll see cows grazing in a field
And perhaps a chicken or a turtle
Crossing the road in their sweet time,
And a small lake where a boy once
Threw a girl in who couldn’t swim,

And many large maple and oak trees
Offering ample shade to lie in,
Their branches to hang yourself from,
Should you so desire,
Some lazy afternoon or evening

When something tells the birds to hush,
And the one streetlight in the village
To keep a few moths company
And the large old house put up for sale
With some of its windows broken.

Charles Simic
New York Review of Books, May 9, 2013

This is a simple form of three five-line stanzas--almost like taking pictures out the car window. Of course, Simic being Simic, the poet managed to get a contemplated hanging in there. What poems can still be found in your old neighborhoods?

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