Elizabeth Bishop (Key West, 1942)
After the rain the puddles are blue.
As St. Theresa said of Grace:
"There are little pools for children,
there are pools for all,
some large, some small."
The school-house in its gritty playground,
built of cement-blocks, stained with rain,
is turreted, and crenallated,
a two-dimensional
cardboard castle
where little captives, like fair ladies
mirror-charmed, gaze into blackboards.
from The New Yorker December 23 & 30, 2002
ReplyDelete(crenellated) battlement:
A notched parapet built on top of a wall, with alternating merlons and crenels for decoration or defense. Also called embattlement.
turret:
A small tower or tower-shaped projection on a building.
A low, heavily armored structure, usually rotating horizontally, containing mounted guns and their gunners or crew, as on a warship or tank.
A domelike gunner's enclosure projecting from the fuselage of a combat aircraft.
A tall wooden structure mounted on wheels and used in ancient warfare by besiegers to scale the walls of an enemy fortress.