A True Account of Talking to the Sun at the East River |
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by Bob Rosenthal
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A True Account of Talking to the Sun at the East River |
April 8, 2009 6:42 AM Birchat HaChama at East 10th Street
This very morning I lie in my bed not dreaming not able to rise the back of my hand flows like a large wave on the ocean under the covers grazes over a half hemisphere an hour out of Halifax Isaac rises for coffee & we tread East to await her Lower East Side is no Russian dascha no flimsy beach shack now I stand at the sun bleached rail as the East River ebbs in Brooklyn and Queens several skeletal high-rise housing towers are going up twenty eight years now again you won’t be able to burn through them only between them now I see you illuminating highest cirrus threads mauve glow the ruddy buoy leans with the ocean flow uptown I didn’t think that you could find me in the sixth floor walk-up dark room you wouldn’t knock at me through a hollow white door the sun lifts her skirts of wispy orange dolor eases herself over Petrol Tanks Hello she calls
I look up from my notebook
Yes I came to you!
Good I forgot your address.
The river bows in its center to sing its tiny ululations to her fieriness
You are older than Vladimir and Frank were. I thought you’d be younger!
I know -- I’ve been sleeping a long time. I got up many times to look at you rise but never before to talk to you
It’s cold here could you move a little closer?
she grabs her hems and lumbers over the low steepled skyline
Thanks -- that’s better I am old now I am colder too that is until now so can you tell me is it my turn?
no sleepy one -- you will wake and you will sing but you will only be heard by the rippling water
the sun is lifting off & rising enough to turn warehouse windows deep red
streetlamps burn like candles in a lit room this day is starting!
Wait Sun!
please tell me something that I need to know I might not be here in twenty-eight years!
she smiles now I see black sun spots on her teeth
Bob be you unnamed & worthless without ego enough to kill yourself
I will send a gift of light through you
every day is the last day of creation
every day you will rise and gather the beams the rays nature’s creations and although your words are . . .
drops of fire scud over the water
what you breath and they are also your shoes
the people you love the Human Comedy you adore and Me the grand creator
We all say this is all beginnings which have no endings!
lightly she rises into pale blue sky & starts cross-town |
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