Here, of course, is New York CIty,
soon enough, my innate 4000 year old
internalized migratory patterns signal,
remind, now be time need to flee to mine
own Walden Pond, no pond, but a wide
bay upon a small river that feeds the
Great Atlantic, and silence & solitude
with assists from animals, the trees,
lovely breezes, the overlord, overloved
sun, will restoreth my soul, when I walk
beside green pastures and forests on country
unpaved rounds, and the poems hang from
the breezes, ripe for the love of a grasping~plucking:
A great reveal though, currently:
Though my soulful body be over 100 miles as the
crow flies from there, here, where I
was/born/bred/educated/nativized/citified/raised/lowered/ be buried/
and yet reside,
the mayhem vibrant+indigenous+unique
to Isle of Manhattan, where the streets cannot never be
clean enough, always, my eyes cloud over at the 10,000
acts of knindness, rudeness, unimagiable beauty, and sadly,
random violence on every street corner, surrounded by broad
ways, temples of arrogant prideful structures of Tower of Babel
ginormity, all pointing up at Him, asking pointlessly, patiently
for an answer that never comes, to
Why Here, Dearest God?
on this Algonquin island, with Indian trails *still extant,
trapped tween two diatomic, fast flowing rivers, do we masses
yearning to be free, live here, a man writes (see below) about
the walks he takes upon it paved banks for soul restoration
and new infusions and certification of the answers you've always, |already have known:
every walkabout
in its own way, is a
gray, grayed, concretized
green pasture unique,
topped off with a combinatory
poem and symphony,
that 90% restoreth my soul,
each art, conducted uniquely,
each in its
own particular,
genetic birth sac,
nourished by the
atmospheric placenta
in the B.C. (Before Covid)
there was a joy at a city's
restoration, excitation,
after many decades of
wilful neglect; Covid
made many flee to
verified green pastures
hundreds of milkes away;
most have now returned,
like the Hudson and the East River,
their/these tides reverse, what goes North,
changes direction, naked to eye visible
So the population too, two way >flowing<
returnees and departees, always churning
the city's populace; here is a story of a man
who escapes but always returns, whose spirits
tidal wave flow from the sheltered sanctuary
to the madcap foment of a city in perpetuity,
revising its demeanor; from both flows do I
draw the water that feeds my words, and each
poem, differentiated, by the accent of my local
this is a city poem, born and bred, from my very
old head, which was birthed in a hospital by its
central park, and will see my ashes scattered within
its con~fines
(see notes for the story of another New Yorker who walks)
https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/dynamic/render?campaign_id=44&emc=edit_ur_20250417&instance_id=152734&isViewInBrowser=true&nl=new-york-today&paid_regi=0&productCode=UR®i_id=17556971&segment_id=196172&sendId=196172&uri=nyt://newsletter/4f1c8476-a85a-5781-912f-f1741fc9811a&user_id=0e2bfe72b2cf96f30ceaa6e616d59ce6
