Night Shadows, 1921

As many days as I can in April, I will be writing a poem to celebrate Poetry Month. This is an ekphrastic poem based on a drawing by Edward Hopper. I drew inspiration from Amy Ludwig VanDerWater’s lovely book, Poems are Teachers. In this case, p. 7 “Let Art Inspire.”

Night Shadows, 1921

— Edward Hopper

Far below, a man on a deserted sidewalk
scurries quickly, only one, and it’s late,
so late the bar on the corner is locked and dark,
so late the streetlight throws a crisp black
onto each corner. There will be moments like this:
no color, just tone that flattens
into planes of light and darkness.

But there’s another person, too, maybe it’s you
at the open window three floors above peering down,
a silent watcher. Briefly, until he moves from the
light into the dark, you occupy each other’s stories:
for you, he is a man traversing a square of light, a man
whose story is unknown, unknowable;
for him, something more complex: he has simply been seen.

How many times are we seen, even if just briefly?
How many times do we enter
someone else’s story thinking
we are the star of our own? We become
a brief image, maybe even a metaphor.

– Steve Peterson

Published by

Steve Peterson

I teach fifth grade in Iowa.

2 thoughts on “Night Shadows, 1921”

  1. Oh, man. I think about this all the time. I see a little kid studying my face from the seat in the grocery cart ahead of me in line and I wonder how that moment is rearranging the neural pathways in that child’s brain and how that ripple will change them forever in ways unknown…

  2. So beautiful. This reminds me of another favorite poem:

    Commitment in a City

    On the street we two pass
    I do not know you.
    I did not see
    If you are –
    fat/thin,
    dark/fair,
    young/old.

    If we should pass again
    within the hour,
    I would not know it.
    Yet –
    I am committed to
    love you.

    You are part of my city,
    my universe, my being.
    If you were not here
    to pass me by,
    a piece would be missing
    from my jigsaw-puzzle day.

    Margaret Tsuda

    “maybe it’s you…”

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