Edward Hopper Lived Here

It’s nothing special, the house.
A little Cape Cod perched
at the side of a lagoon.

Edward Hopper lived here.
He painted here,
his quiet, drama-filled paintings emerged here

in the unexpected quiet of this place.
Icons of the city. Songs of the night.
His lack of detail telling a larger truth.

And you sit a distance away. Just looking
at this strange temple, this oddly holy space.
Unassuming and so full of truth.

About this poem

Places affect me. Particularly holy spaces, be they cathedrals, or Buddhist or Hindu temples. Mosques. And too, when I find myself near or in a place where someone famous lived, I often find myself feeling the holy. It’s not everywhere, but some affect me and I am often surprised when it happens, somehow unaware how much that person affected me. Shakespeare’s home was one. Robert Frost’s stone house. And this one, Edward Hopper’s home on Cape Cod.

If I were to have an eternal hope, it is that my life would affect someone in that same way. Not likely, but certainly an aspiration worth having.

Tom