Category Archives: Uncategorized

The far below

(flying home from NYC) Every timeI marvel at the cloud blanketunraveling so far below to reveal the patchesunderneath the underneath—a quilted world stitched with invisiblethread outlining a freshgreen here, a diamond-sparkledrectangle there, studdedwith sun sprinkles. We are so close up … Continue reading

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Imagine

So many sit on benchessurrounding the circular mosaic,companion spirits to the onewhose spirit certainly circles here— Imagine all the people— the ones who come to sit in the centerfor a photo, the ones who stand onthe almost forty-year-old tiles,his age … Continue reading

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Lorraine and Eleanor

(In memory of Lorraine Hansberry and Eleanor Roosevelt, whoeach lived by Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village) ••• After a week of livingin their neighborhood—albeit as a visitor— I walk by the buildingsthey once called home,the playwright and the first … Continue reading

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Train ticket

With my poet friend en routeto her reading on Long Islandinto the bowels of the renovatededifice looking nothing likethe original Penn Station withits 84 soaring Doric columns, itsconcourse covered by magnificentglass domes, an architecturalmarvel demolished six decadesago, more recently slingshot’dinto … Continue reading

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Ask for a poem

I’ve long admired street poets who set up a table with pens and paper (sometimes a typewriter) on a sidewalk or other outdoor space and write an on-the-spot poem for people passing by. On this trip to New York I’m … Continue reading

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Stonewall

(In memory of the Stonewall Uprising, June 28, 1969) The tiny triangle of a parkcatches my eye as the yellow taxiwhisks me back to where I began—three days in, and I’m taxiing likea New Yorker. The fluttering rainbows makeme want … Continue reading

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Say “I love you”

Spray painted on the back of signsindicating construction onWaverly Place, down the blockfrom Washington Square Park, Say “I love you,” where yesterday a host of humanitycarried other kinds of signsprotesting unfairness, brutalityin a far-away place. This morning Mary and I … Continue reading

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GUD WRTR

(for Georgann) Yeah, I retired that license platewhen I donated the car to the publicradio station some years back, and Dick removed the platesfor me because I wasn’t lettingthose go, seeing as how you claimed them as your firstpublished piece … Continue reading

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Press

Because I’d never seen one before,never unpeeled the thin-skinned bulband pried out a half moon of garlic, I had no idea what the fit-in-your-handcontraption was. But it came with himand the creaky red overstuffed rocker that had belonged to his … Continue reading

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Fish cloud

(for SML) My horoscope for the weekadvised: Be on the lookout formeaningful coincidences. Synchronicities are coming!You have entered the More-Than-Mere-Coincidence Zone. Or, as my late friend Julieliked to say, Honey, thereare no accidents. So it was that, driving upthe hill … Continue reading

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