Spangled Seasons (for One Shot Wednesday)
Under hazed New York
spheres, spring sousing Riverside, earlier
cocooned in the Moor shedding off
mover’s trip, bundled molehills against
walls –once sparks we strung
onto a nebulae over
nights on Federal Hill—you and
I trudge on.
Trails we looped
between Chesapeake,
Susquehanna and
the Hudson, Venus sputtering
on Pennsylvania woods these,
too, we tucked abreast in
memory, if Manhattan
spares us.
Our cherry
noon-s have leaped into infinity
from finiteness; as well warbled
peace from cypress groves at
Inner Harbor, dandelions mirroring
our masquerade, a yucca spurting
by the window squirrels flying
a trapeze on pines mocked,
ends of days orioles
griped about—we plucked to
spangle our seasons. Soon mere
revenant: Baltimore winters we
skidded, wincing but
un-bruised. I posed for you
that summer cicadas plunged
into passion deaths, smearing
wind shields Fells Point’s
mists we eluded fogged.
Tall suns now spear
mornings at the Moor, we flex
our years on West Broadway: summers
on a mountain lake maybe, a bowery at
Brooklyn Gardens in the fall, sunset
behind Grant’s tomb perhaps, or by
Shakespeare’s lagoon, divining
on its surface the play
of wind on our
dreams
I posted here the first two stanzas of this memoir in verse on Nov. 3 to announce its first publication on Poetry Super Highway, Poet of the Week, Nov. 1-7, 2010. It’s been recently posted on Jendi Reiter’s Reiter’s Block, Great Poems Online, Jan. 19, 2011.
Posted for One Shot Wednesday at One Stop Poetry, where poets and artists who love their art share their work and sustain each other. Join us! Click OSP on my blogroll and find out how.
you traveled some very familiar roads for me in this piece…i enjoyed it tremendously…thank you for a great one shot…
Glad you enjoyed it, Brian! I loved those roads especially travelling through them at dawn and dusk.
I’ve only been to New York once, till now. Loved the way you used place names, colors, scenes, to build a whole world in this one. The last line is sheer music. Wonderful piece.
As always, heart-lifting words from you, Joy! Thanks as a word is not enough. Were I that close to give hug you…
This is fascinating, so full of places that seem familiar and yet are cast in a dream-like way– a collision of present and past– beautiful! xxJenne’
…’dream-like’, I love how you put it! Thanks, Jen!
oh this reads wonderful – loved it from first to last line…and hope i’m gonna make it to new york one day..
Glad you love it, Claudia! Yes, make it to NY someday. It will totally sweep you away!
Charming, bustling travelogue.
Thanks, Steve! A travelogue, indeed. First time I see it that way…driving back and forth from Baltimore to Manhattan was life then.
Its wonderfully written and your words … like…
‘wind shields Fells Point’s
mists we eluded fogged.
Tall suns now spear
mornings at the Moor, we flex’
so vividly painted the image… thanks for sharing…
ॐ नमः शिवाय
Om Namah Shivaya
http://shadowdancingwithmind.blogspot.com/2011/02/whispers-another-kind-of-valentines-day.html
Thank you, Shashi, for your generous words!