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Richard Wilhelm is a poet and artist living in the Ball Square section of Somerville. He is one of the founding members of the Ibbetson Street Press.

WE THREE ON A SNOWY EVENING

My wife at the time, my

childhood friend and I

walked out on Main Street

on an evening in February.

The snow fell steadily as we

got stoned in the shadows,

avoiding the cones of light

from street lamps illumining

the First National Bank and the First

Presbyterian Church, staid

institutions in which I had come

to have little faith.

We three were good with one

another then, in those early years.

Now it’s thirty seven years

since wife and I parted;

my childhood friend is dead.

The bank is a store,

the church a parking lot.

But I’ve never forgotten that night

on an empty Main Street

when in the soft snow there seemed

a quiet wonder—

as if everything had its place

in an ordered world.

— Richard Wilhelm

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