Words & Phrases

TUESDAY......ONE TWENTY SEVEN

I've given you book recommendations and sites to click. Today I have received permission to put one of my favorite poems on for your reading pleasure. It is written by Roanoke musician/poet Randy Walker (aka Randalf). Rather than use his album cover of the same name,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiiIrlzTejc&feature=channel_page

I have accompanied the poem with my favorite statue, Evangeline. I will tell you about her tomorrow so that I can use one of my favorite, hopeful phrases: "to be continued..."
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LOVE IN THE CITY OF STATUES

............ Randy Walker

In the days before electric light,

the city night was filled with a thousand stars,

and love traveled through the streets

to reach the hearts of men and women.

........

Love seldom rested in shadows, and no one was immune.

Love was awake when the milkman hitched his horse,

when the apple lady tied her bonnet,

when the baker kneaded his dough.

.........

Love filled the washerwoman's tub

and followed the children to school.

At lunchtime, Love met the clerk in the courthouse square,

love fed the pigeons, pushed the pram, swept the cobblestones,

joked with the lawyer and his friend the accountant.

Love was in the sun on the sandwich vendor's face,

and in the shadows under the elms.

..........

When the church bell rang five o'clock,

Love was waiting for the banker, walking home through back streets.

Love was in the smells of dinner wafting through open windows,

in the honeysuckle climbing the fence,

in the summer dresses waving on the line.

.........

After supper, love took the streetcar,

past the great equestrian statues all coppery and new,

to the park at the edge of the city.

Love swelled the blackberries,

love lay thick on grass still warm with the day's heat,

as sunlight drained into the earth.

.........

Love called through the trees,rippled the pond,

reflected the Milky Way,

played tag with shrieking children,

held lovers' hands,

until it was too dark to see.

.........

On the way home, belles nodded on beaus' shoulders,

but love never rested.

As the night deepened,

love pooled in hollows,

glimmered like gaslight on damp shining pavement,

streamed like moonlight through open windows,

poured over windowsills, swirled around bedsteads,

entered the dreams of children.

..........

Such was life in the city of statues,

when love traveled through the streets,

when city nights were dark,

in the days before electric light.
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...may love swirl around your bedsteads and enter your dreams...