We close the month with an American scene that may feel to some readers as current now as it was when Hopper painted it, and also when Edward Hirsch imagined it. (The poem first appeared in his collection Wild Gratitude, in 1986.) We offer it in gratitude for the real news that poetry can give us about who we are, and to all our readers for joining us this April.
Edward Hopper and the House by the Railroad (1925)
Out here in the exact middle of the day, This strange, gawky house has the expression Of someone being stared at, someone holding His breath underwater, hushed and expectant;
This house is ashamed of itself, ashamed Of its fantastic mansard rooftop And its pseudo-Gothic porch, ashamed Of its shoulders and large, awkward hands.
But the man behind the easel is relentless. He is as brutal as sunlight, and believes The house must have done something horrible To the people who once lived here
Because now it is so desperately empty, It must have done something to the sky Because the sky, too, is utterly vacant And devoid of meaning. There are no
Trees or shrubs anywhere—the house Must have done something against the earth. All that is present is a single pair of tracks Straightening into the distance. No trains pass.
Now the stranger returns to this place daily Until the house begins to suspect That the man, too, is desolate, desolate And even ashamed. Soon the house starts
To stare frankly at the man. And somehow The empty white canvas slowly takes on The expression of someone who is unnerved, Someone holding his breath underwater.
And then one day the man simply disappears. He is a last afternoon shadow moving Across the tracks, making its way Through the vast, darkening fields.
This man will paint other abandoned mansions, And faded cafeteria windows, and poorly lettered Storefronts on the edges of small towns. Always they will have this same expression,
The utterly naked look of someone Being stared at, someone American and gawky. Someone who is about to be left alone Again, and can no longer stand it.
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