The Ginkgo Trees : Manhattan
As nature opened up its dawn,, you came
Born on the wind
It took some hundred million years
But here you are ..deep secret of the earth
Old Ginkgo of the ancients
Along Manhattan Streets.
Cool fuzzed up snare and odd piano notes
Flow from the open windows where the curtains
Move in shapes no longer still.
I stand below...who could be tinkering behind the Ginkgo trees ?
The sound so sweet seems like old fingers
Picking out a memory from keys of black and white
Who could it be ?
I cannot stand forever there so I move on.
The rain comes solidly and fast
It peppers at the Hudson’s watery skin
I wander under Ginkgos , passed the Bars
The shabby back streets into Lwr East
Kids ..out from school ...kick puddles in the street
Just as they have forever done..girls shriek .
I seek out cast iron stairways ...up and down
Trying to trace the steps of Ginsberg’s feet.
An old man underneath a tree smiles up at me
As if to say...I’m waiting for the Ark.
The rain abates and I am loving New York’s spark !
A woman in a purple hat , pram full of brown-eyed dog..
Takes me around the corner to a ‘wondrous thing’
Space where something seems to be
Housed in old masonry, half hidden , dark
Sharp hungry little things..beaks open wide
The mother bird is back and forth..a pigeon world
Ignored by traffic flying by.
I’m searching for a place I cannot find
My heels are pounding hard into the ground
The wrong instructions never get you anywhere
And so I never did arrive.
The Ginkgo stands. She’s seen it all before.
The old tree knows that I and all I see
Will come and go
Archaic Ginkgo ..Jurassic Cycad
She is a Bridge of Sighs arched over time.
Kristine Byrne June 2013 (from my trip to Manhattan 2012)