'Under a sea of summer air'

Looking north from Walnut Hill Mansion, in New Britain, where the distinguished poet Constance Carrier (1908-91)  taught for many years at New Britain High School, most notably Latin.

"Someone on Walnut Hill has taken a picture,

reducing the town by distance to design

under an arch of sky whose empty vastness

the ample clouds can only underline.
 

All that is left of landscape lies at the bottom

of a sea of summer air: the town is drowned

under that sky, remote above the buildings

that in the picture scarcely clear the ground.''

From “The Prospect Before Us,’’ by Constance Carrier