Blue Suburban

by Howard Nemerov

Out in the elegy country, summer evenings, It used to be always six o’clock, or seven, Where the fountain of the willow always wept Over the lawn, where the shadows crept longer But came no closer, where the talk was brilliant, The laughter friendly, where they all were young And taken by the darkness in surprise That night should come and the small lights go on In the lonely house down in the elegy country, Where the bitter things were said and the drunken friends Steadied themselves away in their courses For industrious ruin or casual disaster Under a handful of pale, permanent stars.

__________

From The Selected Poems of Howard Nemerov, Swallow Press, 2003, by Howard Nemerov.