“How far down the road are you?
How many blocks away?”
The city man asked me
One summer day;
Then my heart tasked me
And I heard it say:

“By an acre I reckon,
And a long stone wall,
By distant hills that beckon,
Not city blocks at all.”

Chelsea was hird-lonely
Ages before man;
Gramercy remembers
When the foxes ran;
Broadway once was only
A sun-flecked trail for Pan.

A thin old tree remaining
In a yard by Trinity
To a young elm is plaining
Of how things used to be.
In my river-valley
Where the flicker knocks
At those gray doorways
That have no latch nor locks,
There's a long leaf-alley
But no city blocks.

Go down the road to find me
A slow sonnet's length,
Till sunset makes an amethyst
Of the mountain's strength.