Suburban Frost Bite

Cody Jarrett recommended this Frost poem. I had never read it but it triggered a personal memory.

A Brook In The City 

The farmhouse lingers, though averse to square
With the new city street it has to wear
A number in. But what about the brook
That held the house as in an elbow-crook?
I ask as one who knew the brook, its strength
And impulse, having dipped a finger length
And made it leap my knuckle, having tossed
A flower to try its currents where they crossed.
The meadow grass could be cemented down
From growing under pavements of a town;
The apple trees be sent to hearth-stone flame.
Is water wood to serve a brook the same?
How else dispose of an immortal force
No longer needed? Staunch it at its source
With cinder loads dumped down? The brook was thrown
Deep in a sewer dungeon under stone
In fetid darkness still to live and run --
And all for nothing it had ever done
Except forget to go in fear perhaps.
No one would know except for ancient maps
That such a brook ran water. But I wonder
If from its being kept forever under,
The thoughts may not have risen that so keep
This new-built city from both work and sleep. 

~Robert Frost

There's a street in Cleveland Heights, OH called Meadowbrook Blvd. On a map, the street runs east to northwest towards the Lake. It winds through flat terrain in contrast to the surrounding grid of suburban streets. I rented an attic apartment in a house on that street about 30 years ago and I used to bike around Cleveland taking photos. One day it struck me that Meadowbrook must have been a small creek or brook at one time because of its gentle meander and because it was in a shallow valley. Cross streets dipped down and back up to traverse the road. But there was no brook in sight. I took a photo of it then to remember:

I took the photo standing on a cross street, looking down into and across the shallow dale of Meadowbrook Blvd. If you can see the small stop sign, Meadowbrook runs to the left and right at the intersection. The cross street then continues up and to the right.

I took a photo of exposed traces of cobblestones on Meadowbrook and a manhole cover.  Perhaps a fetid sewer ran under the street as the canalized remains of a brook just as in Frost's poem.