The Ginkgo Tree. Manhattan.
As nature opened up its dawn you came
Born on the wind
It took some hundred million years
But here you are
Old Gingko of the ancients
Looking at the sky along Manhattan Streets.
Cool fuzzed up snare and odd piano notes
Flow from the open window where the curtains
Move in shapes no longer still
I stand below..who could be tinkering ?
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
Pins pepper at the Hudson’s watery skin
I wander past the Ginkgos and the Bars
The shabby back streets into Lwr East
Children from school kick gutter puddles
..girls shriek at getting splashed
I stare at cast iron stairways ...up and down
Trying to trace the steps of Ginsberg’s feet.
A weirdo 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 pushes her doggie pram ..
She takes me round the corner to a wondrous thing.
I photograph a space where something seems to be
Beaks open wide..sharp hungry little things
Housed in old masonry half hidden, dark
.....the mother pigeon back and forth
Blind traffic rushing by full tilt is missing all of this.
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 Gingko stands. She’s seen it all before
The Old Tree knows that I and all I see
Will come and go
Archaic Gingko...hoary relic, will remain
She is a Bridge of Sighs arched over time.
Kristine Byrne June 2013.