On High
A flock of white birds
wheeling against a grey sky
calls for towers—
not the flat brick rooftops of Bronx projects
on view from my window,
their cisterns like prison blockhouses.
In that concerted, graceful turning
I see a London skyline
daggered with steeples,
and somewhere a man watching, too, like me,
across the ages: Pepys at his diary pages
perhaps, following the motion
of mourning doves through his window, or
contemplating the smoke of the Great Fire
that brought down Old St. Paul’s soaring spire.
Here in this new city named and renamed
for two in the old world,
migrating birds lost their way
and their lives among our towers,
confused by the glass, the lights at night,
the sheer height and wind shear
and their own reflections.
Another fire toppled those pillars too,
brought to them on wings
meant for other destinations.
In their own intercontinental flights, the birds
pass lightly through that empty space now
without memory of what once hindered them,
while on the ground, we squabble and peck
about what to build in the towers’ place
to raise us high enough to meet
the same uplifting wind.
–In remembrance, New York City, 2005
Comments