The Little Street Poem by Alan Sullivan

Listen. The clop of wooden soles still sounds
along this crudely cobbled alleyway,
a washerwoman sings a rondelet,
and two young truants haggle over rounds
of jacks. Somewhere an unseen bell resounds,
tolling the passage of an August day;
yet nothing moves. These shutters never sway.
These children never leave their checkered bounds
beside the entryway. The clouds diffuse
a dropp of rain or flush with sunset's blush.
No bargeman hauls; no windmill fills a sluice.
Upon some far-off field of war, a truce
as time stands still beneath the artist's brush.