How he guessed I was from Detroit, I don't know, but he did, and he was curious to know when I'd left and why I'd come back. When I told him I was here to celebrate the retirement of my old teacher, he rocked back and forth a moment and said, "That's beautiful, that is biblical." There are those rare times in my life when I know that what I'm living is in a poem I've still to write. As we sat in silence, I took in as much of the scene as I could until my eyes were filled with so much seeing I had finally to close them.

  On this block seven houses
    are still here to be counted,
  and if you count the shacks
    housing illegal chickens,
  the pens for dogs, the tiny
    pig sty, that is half cave...
  and if you count them you can
    count the crow's nest
  in the high beech tree
    at the corner, and you can
  regard the beech tree itself
    bronzing in the mid-morning light
  as the mast of the great ship
    sailing us all back
  into the 16th century
    or into the present age's
  final discovery.

My guide for that morning was named Tom; I gave him the surname of Jefferson and put him in the poem "A Walk with Tom Jefferson." I left out a remark he made that seemed to encapsulate his vision of our city. After he catalogued the disappearance of all but the seven houses that remained on the block, for want of something better to say, I remarked, "Nothing lasts forever." He turned his weathered face to me and amended my judgment: "Nothing lasts."