I wrote the first draft of this poem in 1976, and worked on it on and off for a long time. I had in mind the extensive outdoor lighting displays in Dracut (the town) and Lowell, but especially as it evolved the dense array of Christmas decorations in Pawtucketville, between Mammoth Road and University Avenue (Textile Ave/Moody St). The image of the Martians came in a late revision and seemed to be just what the poem needed to knock it a little off kilter.—PM

.

Patterns of a Prayer Town

Our Lady of the Bathtub shines white.

A flagpole becomes a stack of gold eggs.

The small dogwood vanishes—in its place a floating rosary.

There’s a chain-link gate festooned with gaudy bulbs,

shrubs lassoed blue, dormers outlined in radiant jelly beans—

every other house turns into a birthday cake.

City folk do it for you and me, for their kids and kids of passing strangers.

But what do the Martians think,

gazing at us through super-powered telescopes?

What do they make of this season

when it looks like a carnival has spread like flu through the neighborhoods?

.

—Paul Marion (c) 2006, from “What Is the City?”