Nearly spring
Nearly shrouded by trees
Roofs speak
Their age
Their excellence in design
The lives and preferences
Of the people who live there,
But also their similarity
In what they must do:
Protect, enclose, accommodate.
They express their individuality
In how they address
What surrounds them – other houses, streets,
Backs and fronts.
And the roofs reveal,
The profile and contour
Of interesting interior volumes
And lives,
Sloped roofs crafted of slate, now metal,
Displaying wealth with conspicuous modesty.
The roofscape elements,
Their similarities of sizes and proportions
Of openings, of gable ends, of roof pitches
Create a neighborhood identity
Perhaps stronger
Than than those of the individual houses.
Now to the stern and sturdy chimneys.
Carefuly contrived,
Deliberately shaped
They are a set of personalities
Of their own,
Profiled against the sky,
With their own lives,
Speaking to one another in ways
Only chimneys can.
Aaltoe's Blog 
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