NYC

New York City lingers in my mind, not easily letting go. Funny how a place can do that.

On arrival, it took me a little while to get into the rhythm of the city. The cold, busyness and constant din was jarring. Once settled in, it was time to leave, and on departing from West 75th early Wednesday morning for Newark airport I felt a sense of missing and a strong desire to stay just one more day.

New York City has a magnetic and compelling quality to it. While sometimes bitterly cold, the days held a warmth of some distant memory, of energy and vibrancy. This city never stands still, always moving on to the next thing.

While paging through Kathleen Jamie’s recently published ‘Selected Poems’, I came across this lovely piece. It reminded me of my walk through Central Park….

Wings Over New York

One of the Central Park

red-tailed hawks is

hunched in a leafless maple

pecking at a polythene bag.

When it flies it’s talons

entangle in the plastic

so it plunges head down

- dreadful winged pendulum-

and everyone gasps,

but with three strong wingbeats

it frees itself and soars

(Where they nestin’? someone asks.

I heard on Dakota, this year)

above the American National History Museum.

At the pond side hop hermit thrush,

fox - and swamp-sparrow

and elsewhere in the Ramble

sounds a tiny NYPD siren

- a starling, high in a red oak.