Fire Island: A Coda

the charm of fire island is the quiet. it's possible to hear the water trickling in a neighbor's fountain, accompanied by a chorus of crickets and frogs. i have neighbors in cambridge who have a very nice fountain, but i can't hear it until i'm standing next to their fence.

the roar of traffic overwhelms every delicate thing. one of the more attractive features of the little dump that em0 and i call home is that it does not directly face any street. it's tucked away behind other buildings, so we don't suffer the barrage of noise that rattles the houses facing a street like western avenue.

i've been trying to gin up the enthusiasm to write a long post about fire island, but my creative energies are low these days. mostly, i'm sweating out the three week wait until my first real paycheck. i was thumbing through my copy of The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, and naturally, i had to stop at the yeats section. and there it was, the perfect tribute to cherry grove -- except that yeats wrote it about the lake isle of innisfree.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree
by william Butler Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.