I LOVE New York

Kass commented on the previous blog that I kind of miss New York. Oh, yes! I have moved to a different world. This world is good too but it doesn't cancel all I loved about New York. My morning has started wonderfully with an acceptance by a poetry online journal of a set of poems I wrote called "7th and 8:00". Several poems describe the few minutes I spent day after day, week after week, walking from the subway at 7th Avenue and 23rd Street, two blocks south to 21st Street where I worked. In less than five minutes a day I observed a rich and varied street life the like of which I suspect exists nowhere else in the US. Here is one of the poems about an experience I had nearly every morning.

The New Seller

Invisible Oriental incense surrounds a new aluminum kiosk,
a miasma of Dehli reds, Jodpur pinks,
temple bronze, Himalayan mauves.
The Indian news seller purifies and blesses
his tiny domain to gain his share
of the dream of American prosperity,
invoking daily the hopes
that brought him across the sea.

I pass by and rarely stop, rarely buy
but breathe the complex scent
and feel my day is blessed
by his belief.
My cynicism curls and crumbles
like the ash of his incense sticks.