The town does not exist

except where one black-haired tree slips

up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.

The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.

Oh starry starry night! This is how

I want to die.

It moves. They are all alive.

Even the moon bulges in its orange irons

to push children, like a god, from its eye.

Anne Sexton

 

I HAVEN’T FORGOTTEN IT. I REMEMBER DUSK THERE, AT ABOUT THIS TIME OF YEAR: DARKNESS FALLS, DRY AND RUSTLING, OVER THE ROOFTOPS BLUE WITH SMOKE; THE CITY GIVES OFF A DULL RUMBLING SOUND AND THE RIVER SEEMS TO HAVE TURNED BACK IN ITS COURSE. I USED TO WANDER THROUGH THE STREETS, THEN. THEY, TOO, ARE WANDERING, NOW, I KNOW! THEY ARE WANDERING, PRETENDING TO BE IN A HURRY TO GET BACK TO THEIR WEARY HOUSEWIVES AND THEIR STERN HOMES … OH, MY FRIEND: DO YOU KNOW WHAT HE IS, THAT SOLITARY CREATURE, WANDERING IN THE GREAT CITIES …?

—

From Albert Camus’s The Fall (1956)