Independence Day

We laid ourselves on cotton sheets, spread over the sand, watching choppy water and kids in bathing suits walk past. A cloudy independence day at the beach, left with nothing to do but nap. So we spread ourselves out on the cloths, shielding our eyes from the light, wrapping ourselves in towels, kindergarteners going down for a rest. And when the breeze kicked up, it was time to walk and find ourselves the perfect little bar, filled with old Irish men, mostly retired policemen, watching hotdog eating contests and the horse races, buying each other rounds and smoking fat cigars. The old man in the stool next to me sipped on a Coors Light from a small, round, stemmed glass. He introduced himself as Burney, and his age-creased neck and kind Irish eyes reminded me of my Grandfather. We talked about books. He asked me if I’d read The Grapes of Wrath, and he asked me to tell him about Steinbeck’s life. And then he told me about a short story by O’Henry that I’d never read. And as he told me about this man in the story, laying in his death bed, watching the leaves of a tree out his window fall, tears filled his eyes, and he took many pauses to catch his composure and then he did start to cry as he finished the story: A painted leaf saved the man’s life. I pressed my hand against his shoulder, the bones of his shoulder blade so delicate, frail, who made it so easy to talk, really talk, about big ideas on a holiday afternoon.

Red Hook

A perfect, unexpected day. Tacos in the park, friends gathered on the grass, bikes and swimming and beer sipped from plastic cups on a pier. The industrial tint of the New York harbor in shades of gray and green, of black burned out factories and skeletal piers rusting into the sea, and grasses growing along the stone walls of melting buildings, their glassless windows gapin, eye sockets looking out toward the Statue of Liberty. Stalled bobcats sit still on a Saturday afternoon, amongst the rubble, the land soon to be a showcase for affordable throw pillows from Sweden. Fairway and artist lofts, boat moorings and cool, eclectic bars. A wasteland, a jackpot, a peaceful corner of the city. For how long, I wonder? One day, this entire city will be full of condos and coffee shops, and then it will all fall into decay again, only to be torn down again and rebuilt again. It doesn’t matter where you are, nature always wins. But for today, it was good friends and laughter and taking it easy, letting the day lead us softly by the elbow.

6/29/07

Sometimes, it amazes me how much women can talk. These three, behind me on the train, talk something important, it’s clear from the tone, but their Spanish is faster than I can catch, and the sense of what they speak is meant to stay between them. Their mouths are full of popcorn and gunfire, rising and falling, piercing and dodging, so that I cover my ears, like a latecomer forced to the front row of an IMAX flick. I fold my book at the creases, trying to pay attention to Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, but the talk keeps piercing, keeps folding in over my shoulder, and I’m reminded that life isn’t in books, only reflected in them. On the next train, I look for the quietest spot to sit, next to a man reading a book. I notice his book is covered with paper, a picture of a woman and child that he wrapped round the covers himself. I find wrapped books suspect, like there might be pornography or white supremacy hiding between the pages. But when I lean over I see the book is in Greek, there is a whole other world behind that story. And so, I sit and watch the black of the subway tunnel punctuated by blue and yellow lights. Are they to lead our way? We are what we make ourselves. How we live our days is how we live our lives, Annie says. Ideas come in like arrows on a wire, sticking for a moment, then retracted by that unseen beast in the shadows.

A Thing of Permanence

Sky crashes. Heaven's pots and pans free-falling 10 stories to an aluminum sink, a bed of shattered glass. The sidewalk floats by, trees struggling out of the pavement shake like a Baptist choir singing 'God bless the rain!' Earth beads itself, a drop on the hood of a shiny red car, ready to break, ready to roll. Will we all ride down the curves into a puddle on one of life’s side streets? My clothes are soaked through, hair clinging to shoulders and face, seaweed on a rock. I've given up on weaving through the dry and wet spaces, refused to huddle under the eaves of passing buildings. This is a slow, peaceful, piercing rain that bounces off the pavement as soon as it hits. But there is no violence in it. Only relief at the end of this sauna summer day. An intermission from the pudding-thick air and toaster-oven subway, from the persistent growling under my skin for a gulp of something cool. The water washes the stains from the sidewalk, a million footprints and dog farts, gum wrappers and beer bottles, bum piss and ice cream mishaps. An urban track washed into the gutter, leaving a sand dune without footprints, a trail with no scent.

The Coffee Cup Erupts

The coffee boy fills it up barely to the top, and then the liquid grows, expanding past the lip, through the holes in the lid. I pour some into the ivy covering Bryant Park. But it continues to grow, and drip over the side, onto my hands, onto my white blouse and blue strappy heels. One more vexation on a long morning, thinking, is this what I want to wake up to for the rest of my life? A hot walk to work. Coffee in a paper cup fighting me every inch, pleading to go back to the pot it came from, to the beans it was ground and brewed from, to the airplane it was shipped here on, to the plantation and the farmers’ hands who picked them, to the bushes those beans grew from, the earth and water it fed on, to the sun, the sun, the sun, that gave it life in that dark chocolate earth. I press the elevator button. At least it’s cool in here. And walk to my desk, setting the cup down. The coffee now stays neatly in the cup, its top stained with the rust marks of this morning’s eruption. Lava or blood? Dried coffee stains are like watercolor, darker at the edges and soft, opaque at the center. Now, maybe, I can think about drinking it. Somehow, coffee isn’t as much fun in the summer.

Quitting Coffee

Honey freefalls down the curves
Of the crumpled plastic bear
Yellow top hat inverted
A silent, respectable old man flipping his top

There is beauty everywhere
In the viscous sugar dripping into my tea
The voice coming out my computer speakers
In the waking sunlight filtering through the kitchen curtains

Enjoy beauty, seek it out, create it
This is what I’m reminded of
The quiet early Spring morning blanketing me
The remnants of a cold scratching my nose and throat

Spiritual wholeness comes from many sources
The kind you make, and the kind you accept
Beauty is God’s gift
In too many forms to count

From Sea to Shining Sea

Sometimes you think
Hell rained over
Dripping amber waves of salt
Onto the kitchen linoleum
The morning news full of so much heat
Hot machine-gun fire and blood oozing
From the hearts of foreign babies
By the time it reaches my table
That angry fire and pain and wet tears has dried out
The blood aged, turned to rust
Dehydrated tears, piles of salt
And don’t you know?
Both sugar and salt lower the freezing point of water
But I’m not concerned about a sea of sugar
It’s the salt, piling up on those purple mountains
I’m not worried about the world melting, either
Ice cubes do it all the time and find their place