Banished: Reinventing Gotham

Banished: Reinventing Gotham

Rarely, on Sundays in New York—

            The city—

Can you see from Hell’s Kitchen

            To Chelsea

With such clarity of eye—

            Of vision.

Ceaselessly reconstructing, revising.

You rose hazelessly from good sleep,

            Dream slumber,

Unhindered by substance, sin,           

            Or by guilt,

Every step, each sight, each thought

            Remembered.

Stretching up and down and out, reaching in.

You greeted  the sun as a comrade—

            Not stranger—

Whose staunch appearance intrudes

            Into night:

With otherwise clear-day dawns,

            Unblemished.

Night-settings millioned to greet each new day.

Thick, overcast mornings like this—

            Air soupy—

With the sticky remnants of

            Last night’s daze

Hanging over muddled minds,

            Yours soars free.

Ideas swirl meteorologically.

Yes, you rejected all demons

            Last night brought.

Alphabet soup and molly

            You banished

To memories tucked away:

            Other-timed.

Blameless land, walked by free-willed human souls.

You embrace this new Manhattan,

            Embracing

Morningside to Liberty

            Holding you

Sweetly in her island grip:

            The new you.

Insular: Harlem, Hudson, East: new-us’d.