Fading Into view

Big Frank has been thinking lately about the hidden beauty that surrounds us. This is sleeping beauty; the cloud that struts its stuff high above you in shifting shapes that goes unseen. This is like the perfect symmetry of the solid green leaves that dangle out of sight. This is the corner locked colors of that long-ago purchased picture looked at . . . when? This is the ambition/worry clouded view that overhangs our days. This is . . . the faded bluish-green paint on the weathered wood on that street two blocks from your house. William Carlos William can show you the way.

Pastoral

by William Carlos Williams

When I was younger

it was plain to me

I must make something of myself.

Older now

I walk back streets

admiring the houses

of the very poor:

roof out of line with sides

the yards cluttered

with old chicken wire, ashes,

furniture gone wrong;

the fences and outhouses

built of barrel staves

and parts of boxes, all,

if I am fortunate,

smeared a bluish green

that properly weathered

pleases me best

of all colors.

No one
will believe this

of vast import to the nation.