New England Diary

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'Disguished as stones'

‘‘Watching the Breakers” (1891), by Winslow Homer

 

“In the beginning were the Words of God, disguised as stones:

like hard, black pupils dropped into the faithful’s eyes, these stones.

Waves hunched in worship shake the granite shore beneath my feet

as once it shuddered under the soles that colonized these stones.’’

— From “New England Ghazal,’’ by John Canaday, a poet and teacher who lives in Arlington, Mass.

Arlington’s famous municipal water tower was built by the Metropolitan Water Works between 1921 and 1924 in the Classical Revival style, to provide water storage for Northern Extra-High Service area, consisting of Lexington and the higher elevations of Belmont and Arlington. The design is said to have been inspired by the rotunda from the Samothrace temple complex, in Greece.

Menotomy Indian Hunter in Arlington Center, by resident Cyrus E. Dallin (1911)

Patriots' Grave in the Old Burying Ground in Arlington