PHYLLIS BECK KATZ, POET
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POEMS/ To Treetops, Sparkill, N.Y

key.
To Treetops, Sparkill, N.Y. 

Have you forgotten us,
who gave you your first
face-lift, a fresh new look,
and showed you how your world

had changed?  You had a shabby 
elegance, lofty doors 
and windows, dark green
shutters stately and forbidding,

proud Victorian matron,
hiding your crumbling foundation
with a skirt of violets and myrtle,
your slated mansard bonnet decked

with offerings from tulip trees
and oaks.  Without us, would you
have seen your shabby servants’ 
quarters transformed to rain-

bowed rooms with swinging 
beds and jungle-painted bath?
Without us would you have shed
the faded rose and ivy

on your walls, heard the notes
of trumpet or bassoon or flute,
seen the host of children
sledding on your sloping hill?

Without us, would you have lived
to notice, from the window
at your peak, smoke on the horizon
stretching to the south beyond

your sheltered fields and woods,
have watched the plans fly in and crash,
have seen the pair of shining towers
as they burned and fell?

From Migrations, 2013

Copyright 2018, Phyllis Beck Katz. All rights reserved.