A Sunday-Afternoon Row
In every direction up and upward, high, higher, and highest,
All my eyes see are the colossal heights of Gotham —
Monolithic steeples, obelisks, turrets, towers,
Vertical castles under never-ceasing construction,
With steel and iron girders being bolted, welded, by mere men,
In tethered-togetherness, against every weather
And, hopefully, humankind's next maniacal malevolence.
Yet, in one seething expectoration of history's spitting cobra,
I see two magnificent colossal edifices collapsing,
Come numbingly tumble-fumble-stumble-rumbling down,
In an arm-and-a-leg-ageddon so ubiquitously iniquitous,
An entire planet of aghast caught-in-the-crossfire bystanders
Can do nothing but gasp, choke, in throat-moaning silence,
Scream, bleed and die vicariously, without ever leaving their TV's.
But this is 2012, three afternoons before Passover, five from Easter.
I reassure myself that such apocalypses are mythical, apocryphal,
The rubble-stuff plaguesayers prophesied for pharaohs,
The bowls of molten rivers flowing through Revelation,
Not post-Hiroshima realities the next terrorist might unleash.
Indeed, this is the innocence my mind wears into Central Park,
As my love and I head toward the boathouse, for a Sunday row.
04/04/12 - (1)
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