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Wednesday, June 24, 2026

The Poetry show: Streets

 

 

Enlighten Radio Presents

 

When a man passes, the streets get shorter.

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London streets, county roads, streets of Jerusalem, Is moonlight warmer than the city lamps? W. Ethelbert Miller, Amy Lowell and Naomi Nye headline the feeling of being followed, or following: Nobody?


Broadcast Wednesdays, 10 AM on player.enlightenradio.org

Hosts: Janet Harrison, John Case

This Episode Recorded 06/24/2026


Streets

by

Naomi Shihab Nye


A man leaves the world
and the streets he lived on
grow a little shorter.
One more window dark
in this city, the figs on his branches 

will soften for birds. 

If we stand quietly enough evenings 

there grows a whole company of us

 
standing quietly together.

 
overhead loud grackles are claiming their trees

 
and the sky which sews and sews, tirelessly sewing,

 
drops her purple hem.

 
Each thing in its time, in its place,

 
it would be nice to think the same about people.

 
Some people do. They sleep completely,

 
waking refreshed. Others live in two worlds,

 
the lost and remembered.

 
They sleep twice, once for the one who is gone,

 
once for themselves. They dream thickly,

 
dream double, they wake from a dream

 
into another one, they walk the short streets

 
calling out names, and then they answer.

 

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