MANHATTAN

THE UNPEOPLED CITY

MIDNIGHT WORSHIP:  BROOKLYN BRIDGE

In the rain
Rows of street lamps are saints in bright garments
That flow long with the bend of knees. 
They lift pale heads nimbussed with golden spikes.

Up the lanes of liquid onyx
Toward the high fire-laden altars
Move the saints of Manhattan
In endless pilgrimage to death,
Amidst the asphodel and anemones of dawn.

ASCENSION:  AUTUMN DUSK IN CENTRAL PARK

Featureless people glide with dim motion through a quivering
     blue silver;
Boats merge with the bronze-gold welters about their keels. 
The trees float upward in gray and green flames. 
Clouds, swans, boats, trees, all gliding up a hillside
After some gray old women who lift their gaunt forms
From falling shrouds of leaves.

Thin fingered twigs clutch darkly at nothing. 
Crackling skeletons shine. 
Along the smutted horizon of Fifth Avenue
The hooded houses watch heavily
With oily gold eyes.

STARTLED FORESTS:  HUDSON RIVER

The thin hill pushes against the mist. 
Its fading defiance sounds in the umber and red of autumn leaves. 
Like a dead arm around a warm throat
Is the sagging embrace of the river
Laid grayly about the shore.

The train passes. 
We emerge from a tunnel into a sky of thin blue morning glories
Where yellow lily bells tinkle down. 
The paths run swiftly away under the lamp glow
Like green and blue lizards
Mottled with light.

WINTER STREETS

The stars, escaping,
Evaporate in acrid mists. 
The houses, rearing themselves higher,
Assemble among the clouds. 
Night blows through me. 
I am clear with its bitterness. 
I tinkle along brick canyons
Like a crystal leaf.

FEBRUARY SPRINGTIME

The trees hold out pale gilded branches
Stiff and high in the wind. 
On the lawns
Patches of gray-lilac snow
Melt in the hollows of the terraces. 
The park is an ocean of fawn-colored plush,
Ridged and faded. 
Sharp and delicate,
My shadow moves after me on the rumpled grass—­
Grass like a pillow worn by a dear head. 
Joy!

THE ASSUMPTION OF COLUMBINE

The lights trickle grayly down from the hoary palisades
And drip into the river. 
Leaden reflections flow into the water. 
Framed in your window,
Your little face glows deceptively
In a rigid ecstasy,
As the wide-winged morning
Folds back the mist.

FROM BROOKLYN