A Saturday in New York
The sage would say there is an art
to walking Manhattan.
Each footstep has its reason
as the walker tracks a line of thought
through oncoming throngs
along the avenue at dusk.
Last evening another him
followed familiar shades,
unfamiliar faces contending
with powers that be
in suites above the silhouettes
of old-time coats and hats.
This city is always shrouded
in mist dismissing sunlight
as distraction from the living
things mankind create from dirt
for profit and amusement.
A statue of Prometheus is lit
for maximum gleam,
for those who find themselves
there one moment and gone the next
as though the gods would grant
day passes to enlightenment.
A true work of art always
claws
at its cage door for escape
A great city scripts it walls
for a movie shot at dawn
when the streets are empty
excerpt for the girl on tiptoes
storefront in little black dress.
The walker stops at the entrance
to the park: abandon all polis?
The rain decides upon itself
as the city in tears.
The zoo's water draws him
to an unknown shore
where sea lions lie so content
they don't bother barking,
because no one's watching
from the gate but the walker
pausing to wonder why
the bull is staring him down,
trying to speak as though
an oracle of the sea,
revealing to the walker
that he is the walker
who's being left behind,
who must decide upon himself
as a city he can take in hand
and set beside the dying sage,
not some invisible city,
he no modern Marco Polo.
A sage would suggest that
every walk is a chance to transcend, the
Sixty-Sixth Street Transverse
a single idea of the noble path
to another potential
colony of companions.
Our walker heads instead for the Lawn,
the city's bare bosom bejeweled
with a necklace of lights he might steal
and sell to pledge a love
or save the lives of spirits
about to launch from canyons
as though the river begged the sage
to share the secret of a woman
cradling a baguette like
newborn philosophy.
The boathouse gondolas
have forsaken Venice.
They float on a wish to decode the
architects' new worlds rendered.
A ragged man on a bench takes a bite
of his soft pretzel, hums a tune
the walker would know if
he'd lived an imagined life.
Car horns devour melody,
spitting colors in the air.
The hungry man jumps genres,
paints his peace on darkened trees.
The walker sees only struggle
so returns to the streets
as careless of moments
as the universe singing,
deciding upon itself as the
sage's raging canvas.
At the hospital's doors, as though bronze,
he freezes to ponder limits:
outside, motion through invented time
inside, stasis waiting for a moment.
He enters the sage's room
where timelessness has sewn a shroud
in which the sage has wrapped himself,
quoting from scripture he once
understood.
The sage mumbles, rolling eyes
to heaven, I hope it isn't cold
in the grave and then, I shouldn't say that,
should I? knowing I is vanishing
to escape the blame for drawing back
reason's fist about to land.
From the sage's window the walker
spots their very shadows
on the avenue, debating
the merits of masterpiece
left as trace of a truth
that no one's ever unearthed
as the sage bequeaths his shroud,
the map of city lost and found.
George Guida
