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Dave Richardson USA
6th Avenue Dream-walk
So
here
I
walk beside an empty space
and
wonder where you are
in
the wide world, what you might
be
seeing, hearing, tasting today.
Inside I am still and silent,
full but empty and strange.
I
see all the things
I've wondered about in focus
and
in frame.
Street flute
mixed with traffic and echoes,
screeches of subway trains
sliding in to a cave of sweet
despair that lies beneath Bryant Park
and
it's clear as sky to me that I
have no reason to be here:
I'm
only lingering,
waiting for you,
(are you coming?)
Wrestling
with fear that a dream
I
had, so deep, might be just
the
cooing of doves,
barking of dogs,
honking of taxis and
stumbling bums making noises
way
down in their throats
that signify nothing but tell me
I'm
still in love,
maybe
with you or only
with empty air;
maybe with a Goddess,
maybe with myself
or
a fleeting
spray of wildflower smells
that passed me by one day,
on
a sidewalk circling
Washington Square.
Overhead
sprays of violet and crimson,
wisps of clouds seen
through gaps in lumbering
sky-reaching blocks of concrete,
blue windows in steel frames
and
edges with gargoyles
in
places they shouldn't be.
Underground rumbling
of
an F train
headed
for
Red Hook, Park Slope,
Flatbush and eventually
Coney Island, and there's
a
rush of warm air
up
from the grate
and
into my chest –
not
my body, but the space
inside my ribs that tingles
from time to time
in
sync
with little flashes
of
memories and views
of
your face in different aspects,
and
the sound of your voice
that's only etched in nerve bundles
and
ganglia surrounding
my
inner ear now, instead
of
vibrating in molecules
of
air all around.
I
think:
What happened? I feel:
loss. I wonder:
if.
I taste:
crème brulee
with vanilla beans.
I
touch: a memory
of
skin, cheeks,
eyelashes, earlobes.
I
smell: hair,
and fresh rain
on warm asphalt.
The healing
One
and two
And
raw but still:
The
red brick wall moans;
The
snowy day cries
And
asks the air:
“Where is my white moon that soared
above the rose forest, chanting
dreamily of chocolaty love?
(luscious; easy; lazy; essential.)”
Go
out to the garden;
drool, rant, scream;
milk elaborate bitterness;
rust away the need;
recall your power:
You
are
shine.
Copyright, Dave Richardson |
