I walk through a neighborhood I've lived by all my life and never have seen Low sun kissing autumn leaves the birds gaze at me overhead As I go from house to house: no one home All the political rhetoric, my own visions of the future, fade as the strong silence speaks of so many astonishingly different lives, congregations, bubbles of authentic existence I check another NH box, and my communist dreams shudder I'm beginning to understand this notion of small government, I feel wild individualism growing like a rash around me, smug and complacent "Good fences make good neighbors" smiling contentedly at me Government is now such a tiny fragment of these peoples', anyone's, life Me, a solicitor -- a trespasser -- wading through the peace of sunset And it's so sad; even for a romance, these days, its health requires some rugged independence I get home and run for my lonely, lonely life