44 



SUMMER 



Here, too, I have watched the gulls that sail over the 

 Harbor, especially in the winter. From this outlook 

 I have seen the winging geese pass over, and heard 

 the faint calls of other migrating flocks, voices that 



were all the more 

 mysterious for their 

 falling through the 

 muffling hum that 

 %| rises from the streets 

 and spreads over 

 the wide roof of 

 the city as a soft 

 night wind over the 

 peaked roofs of a for- 

 est of firs. 



Strangely enough 

 here on the roof I have 

 watched the only nighthawks 

 that I have ever found in Mas- 

 sachusetts. This is surely the 

 last place you would expect to 

 find such wild, spooky, dusk- 

 loving creatures as nighthawks. 

 Yet here, on the tarred and 

 pebbled roofs, here among the 

 whirling, squeaking, smoking 



chimney-pots, here above the crowded, noisy streets, 

 these birds built their nests, laid their eggs, rather, 

 for they build no nests, reared their young, and in 



ARGIOPE, THE MEADOW 

 SPIDER 



