TRAIN TO THE CITY
Ray’s Story
Holiday travelers are on their way
to museums, the Yankee game or Broadway.
After passing Croton on the Hudson,
with the Tappan Zee coming into view
and bare palisades across the river,
cold begins to fill and cover me.
I couldn’t help myself.
Even though the hurricane missed land
and the morning was sunny and clear,
I grabbed the rain jacket
as I left the house.
When I boarded this train
I was still a husband.
When I get off,
I will still be a father.
Absolution rides next to guilt.
The men in mismatched clothes
board the train at Sing Sing,
sit close to me. Later,
they’ll struggle with metrocards,
stare at muni-meters and Vespa scooters.
It’s someone else’s city now.
Forgiveness does not arrive
as I pass George Washington Bridge.
It’s not in the tunnel
after 125th Street.
It may be somewhere
beyond Grand Central.
I understand too late
how fear disguised as respect
and I failed to hold close
the ones I love.
Stepping on the platform,
for once I do not rush.
The crowd could be leaving church
on a holy day of obligation.
Dropping the newspapers
in locked metal cages,
a collection for the poor in spirit.
I take the subway
to Williamsburg, the automated voice
announcing every stop.
Climbing up from the station,
the Hasidic men have gone.
Young hipsters and pretend hipsters
fill the streets, the shops and bars.
I’ve become the graying ghost,
staring from a once familiar corner
of North Sixth and Bedford.
SUMMER ON THE TWENTIETH OF JUNE
You arrive sooner
for Earth no longer
tilts as far
but you still bring the heat,
put us on notice
that you’ve returned.
Now the ordeal, the gauntlet
of festivals for everything,
yard sales, picnics by the lake
barbecues in backyards
weddings, graduations
passages of life
as life passes on
Oh summer, summer
Season when days grow shorter
Season of the endless plans
never ending possibilities
that may never ripen
trips that are canceled
or never come to be
the Cooperstowns and Coney Islands
missed for yet another year
And yet
there will be
that unannounced time
a walk around the subdivision
the detour through the pocket woods
where the twitter of an unknown bird
or the first yellow stripe
on a fluttering maple leaf
as the evening cool
lowers its gentle sheet
and welcomes the uninvited
hoping to make their entrance
in the fall