A holiday poem

Presidents Day, 2008

Madison Square Park, NYC

The elm and birch are still pathetic, leafless things,
Forty degrees and straight across from Indiana
(As the crow flies) where yesterday's snowfall blankets
The pulsing winter earth and all it keeps in store.

Today, the air is warmer than the latitude.
We are in shorts and hooded sweatshirts taking in
Long droughts of salty, sticky air that's warm enough
To melt Italian ice and twice as warm as it should be.

A filth of starlings, lacking our forecast, swoops and dives
Beneath our false Venetian skyline, the watchful clock
Silently marking time (perhaps it's broken?),
Synchronized so long ago and left alone.

A lone blackbird, an out-of-towner I suppose,
Slips on the branch of Mr. Paine's stainless steel tree,
Catches and rights himself before descending to
The surer footing of decay. Nature's half-life.

I'm swimming now, flanked by the waterless fountain basins
Full of debris ... one glove, a broken heel, a playbill.
Surer than seasons or sunlight these artifacts
Surface amid a cast of bronze then float away.