Wallace Stevens left here every morning
to walk to work.
Thirteen stones now delineate his commute.
*
I started backwards, at the office,
on a Saturday morning in late January,
the world dormant and nondescript.
As I walked,
I passed through successive decades of
changing architectural taste.
Each was briefly
isolated in its moment:
Art Deco; Gothic and Georgian Revival;
some responses to Le Corbusier.
The last snowfall persisted in uneven, blackened heaps
between the houses and the businesses. Soon
some would be made white again.
*
Up ahead, the Connecticut River,
a big half-frozen current—
in fact it is not a river
but a little stream, Wash Brook.
Across it
wealth and green space.
A tree grows through the glass coach
partially buried in someone’s front yard pachysandra.
*
It is not to be seen beneath the appearances
That tell of it ...
Space-filled, reflecting —
A round window in the gable, like an eye.