Lawrence, Massachusetts sits less than 30 miles north of Boston and 15 miles east of Lowell, birthplace of beat poet Jack Kerouac, and 25 miles from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden Pond. Today that fertile literary patch is home to a multicultural potpourri of south Asians, southeast Asians, Latinos from across the Americas, and Brazilians. They join the immigrants from southern Europe and folks from the hinterlands of Boston who came to Lawrence and Lowell to work in the textile mills that sprang up throughout the area in the second half of the 19th century.

The region’s rich literary heritage could easily be lost on these new inhabitants, so the Robert Frost Foundation is keeping his memory alive with translations of his poetry — at least for the hispanohablante inhabitants. The first stanza of Pulitizer Prize winner Frost’s “Tree at My Window” follows in English and in Rhina Espaillat’s translation:

Tree at my window, window tree,
My sash is lowered when night comes on;
But let there never be curtain drawn
Between you and me.

Árbol vecino, ventana verde,
cierro el postigo si el sol se va;
pero entre nosotros dos, ojalá
nunca se cierre.

Frost is an icon of New England literature and thus part of the cultural heritage of anyone living in these old mill cities and surroundings. It’s encouraging to see belles lettres joining the increasing amount of government attention and commercial appeal to America’s multicultural communities.