The Secret Country

Before they go the way of Checker cabs,

rotary phones, cassette tapes, or bootjacks,

let’s remember that riding to work on the upper deck

of a London bus as it brushed the skirted canopy

of trees in late spring was like stepping

into the green-lit rooms of shade and wonder

we’d been promised as children, a scratch

of branches along its red roof, the whoosh

of leaves music to a den we need to move

past to see we’ve been living in it all along.