A model of good writing, complete with a clever rounding back to his literary theme at the end.
I found these two paragraphs in particular a precise evocation of what I see and feel every night.
Taking my cue from the Wallace Stevens poem ”The Idea of Order at Key West,” which describes the harbor at night, I found myself doing a lot of walking around Key West after dark – not just the harbor with its colored reflections (”emblazoned zones and fiery poles,” as Stevens writes), but the residential streets as well. It’s cooler for one thing, and you don’t have the distraction of the daytime tourist trolleys. The old frame houses, which somehow look New Englandy and tropical at the same time, send out light from their shuttered windows, sometimes through the beautifully complex interference of palm fronds.
All sorts of flower fragrances fill the air, plus the occasional pungency of deep-fried conch fritters when you pass one of the boatmen’s houses. The tropical plants – flame trees, orchid tree, royal poinciana, kapok, jacaranda – show handsomely in the lamplight. Occasionally you come into an open space where the sky looms into prominence, with high, heaped-up cumulus clouds against the midnight blue background, a scattered handful of stars, and perhaps a crescent moon.
It’s by Alfred Corn, and it came out in the New York Times in 1988.