Vacant lot

Houses have eyes. From my window I can see life in the vacant lot across the street.

Peasant women in bright clothes free their donkeys and let them eat weeds that stand above the snow. The women build a fire to warm their hands.

Students cut across the lot, their neat black coats setting off black hair and eyes and mustaches.

Last summer this lot held a house and garden with a fountain and a rose blooming. I could see, then, only one old man, reading behind a high fence. The city grows.

I will not mourn the old days. As one era passes, another is born.