To look out on the city of your birth,

   As headlights trace a pathway through the dark;

      To see the distant white upon the dome

   That governs every avenue and park,

      Will leave you sensing what you had called home

Is where the body longs to meet with earth.

To see the slopes of roof and chimney still

   With day’s end, and the windows flicker out

      As, one by one, old names are called to rest,

   And feel the cool air settling about,

      Is to discover in one’s sleepless breast

An empty place that only this could fill.

To find, in shabby store fronts, things of worth

    Whose scraped and dusty memories can’t be bought;

      To see the shadows fill the stadium’s bowl,

   And hear the tower’s bell intone your thought,

      Is, for the first time, to perceive it whole,

This half-forgotten city of your birth.