New England Diary

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'Residue of my dream remains'

"Like the stench and smudge of the old dump-heap

Of Norwalk, Connecticut, the residue

 

Of my dream remains, but I make no

Sense of even the fragments. They are nothing

 

More significant than busted iceboxes and stinking mattresses

Of Norwalk, and other such human trash from which

 

Smudge rose by day, or coals winked red by night,

Like a sign to the desert walkers"

 

-- From "Dream, Dump-Heap and Civilization,'' by Robert Penn Warren