The warm sun dreams in the dust, the warm sun falls <br />On bright red roofs and walls; <br />The trees in the park exhale a ghost of rain; <br />We go from door to door in the streets again, <br />Talking, laughing, dreaming, turning our faces, <br />Recalling other times and places . . . <br />We crowd, not knowing why, around a gate, <br />We crowd together and wait, <br />A stretcher is carried out, voices are stilled, <br />The ambulance drives away. <br />We watch its roof flash by, hear someone say <br />'A man fell off the building and was killed— <br />Fell right into a barrel . . .' We turn again <br />Among the frightened eyes of white-faced men, <br />And go our separate ways, each bearing with him <br />A thing he tries, but vainly, to forget,— <br />A sickened crowd, a stretcher red and wet. <br /> <br />A hurdy-gurdy sings in the crowded street, <br />The golden notes skip over the sunlit stones, <br />Wings are upon our feet. <br />The sun seems warmer, the winding street more bright, <br />Sparrows come whirring down in a cloud of light. <br />We bear our dreams among us, bear them all, <br />Like hurdy-gurdy music they rise and fall, <br />Climb to beauty and die. <br />The wandering lover dreams of his lover's mouth, <br />And smiles at the hostile sky. <br />The broker smokes his pipe, and sees a fortune. <br />The murderer hears a cry.<br /><br />Conrad Potter Aiken<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-house-of-dust-part-02-03-interlude/
