the view from the hill

dim or bright they seem like stars the lights
in houses and by roads on the western plain
we see them even through this light rain
the twinkly harbingers of our warm nights
the ever-present memory never just requites
the struggles of that time but calms the strain
of dreams about the distant spanish main
and yet we have that moment dead to rights
for all its beauty i never loved that place
but from the height observing land and sea
by day or evening it was a site of dreams
and now as i through recollection trace
those things that were and can no longer be
i think of all those shiny little gleams