Overhead the elevated straddling the library made a cool shade in summer. Across the street, framed between two steel pillars, a dirt path led through a grass lot to a hint of country life: two-story wooden houses and chicken coops. When, father-voiced, the rumbling train passed above, the chickens cackled of their decisions and appetites. For me, age twelve, there were sounds of waterfall gods who lost themselves in mist below as motion without matter, effort without force, a heaven, on every hand the signs and portents of sublimity. I embraced its configurations but in human role, with faculties of sight, hearing and delight: my object pleasure and my meaning self. I awoke to the sound of my own steps. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...VIGNETTES OVERSEAS: 9. VILLA SEBELLONI, BELLAGGIO by SARA TEASDALE A NOCTURNAL UPON ST. LUCY'S DAY, BEING THE SHORTEST DAY by JOHN DONNE WRITTEN FOR A LADY'S COMMON-PLACE BOOK by JOHN GARDINER CALKINS BRAINARD SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE: 29 by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING LAMENT OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, ON THE APPROACH OF SPRING by ROBERT BURNS |