They are at their windows in every section of the tangerine of earth— the Chinese poets looking up at the moon, the American poets gazing out at the pink and blue ribbons of sunrise. The clerks are at their desks, the miners are down in their mines, and the poets are looking out their windows maybe with a cigarette, a cup of tea, and maybe a flannel shirt or bathrobe is involved. The proofreaders are playing the ping-pong game of proofreading, glancing back and forth from page to page, the chefs are dicing celery and potatoes, and the poets are at their windows because it is their job for which they are paid nothing every Friday afternoon. What window it hardly seems to matter though many have a favorite, for there is always something to see— a bird grasping a thin branch, the headlights of a taxi rounding a corner, those two boys in wool caps angling across the street. The fishermen bob in their boats, the linemen climb their round poles, the barbers wait by their mirrors and chairs, and the poets continue to stare at the cracked birdbath or a limb knocked down by the wind.
