when poets live in mansions

here are all of the postcards from the lot of the longfellow mansion. i have no idea if he lived in a few places between the birth-house of the last post or went from there to here, but it's nice to know that poets can also live in mansions.

i find the group of these quite extraordinary in the multiplicity of views, crops, colors, etc. as well as the various treatments of longfellow's portrait...

these cards had a lot more writing on them than the first ones, and here is the best of the found texts:

this is the worst
country i ever struck.
nothing but snow + cold
weather. don't expect
the thermometer will ever
get above zero again.
w

listening to the sky...

a detail from a 1940's "linen" postcard (so called because of the texture of the paper), of some military men with an incredible listening device to hear approaching airplanes. i suppose it is the equivalent of a telescope for ears. it would be nice if one could use such a device to listen to the stars or the sky, not for planes and bombs, but for voices that have somehow gotten lost, dawn or dusk stars perhaps, or the quiet breath and motion of clouds... i wonder how birdsongs from a nearby tree would sound coming through such a contraption, as well as someone in a treehouse whistling... does the moon make sounds as it drifts in orbit... and what about singing or playing records beneath this thing and projecting the sounds up to sky. i think the sky would like that.