Graffiti

On a brick wall along my own private Cyprus Avenue—a Cyprus Avenue I hold deep inside, a Cyprus Avenue that's encircled, swathed, and gently paved over my soul—there are words written in a fine and flowing hand, words penned with paint made from charcoal, children's spit, and animal fat. They lie beneath the shade of Austrian pine and common lime: "I wonder if it seems to you / Luriana Lurillee / That all the lives we ever lived / And all the lives to be / Are full of trees and waving leaves." This is from "A Garden Song," a poem by 19th century English politician Charles Isaac Elton. They're Astral Weeks-like in both essence and substance, no?