STAYING ON THE EDGE

Staying on the Edge


How does distance look?
It extends from a spacelessness within to
the edge of what can be loved.

-Anne Carson
Autobiography of Red


You think New Yorkers have
no sensitivity, that we are
inured to the hardships of mankind.
Well, you may be right,
But I see my husband
Walking up Seventh Avenue
With the grace of a landowner
Tenderly watching over his fields.
I see my friend Toni growing very thin,
Yet floating above the Village crowds
Like a young heron fresh from marsh reeds.

I see saints in the making,
giving alms and aiding the ill and
the poor. This homeless ecclesiastical
frieze blends with the balustrades
of the subway, whose white sienna marble
turns hue with the daylight and opens
onto the downstairs where walls are
the color of ripening winter wheat.

There is more going on than you care
to consider. Too much happens
at every moment and it must all
be chronicled, put on paper
and turned into song,
sung in churches and open parks.

Oh, we have all had our bad times,
but that is no longer the common ground.
There should be special encounter groups
and programs to recover from the disease
of greed. We should all learn to do
only that which must happen, and then
to record it with keen observation.

There must be a fine edge on each
fine horizon that ceases to move,
in the distance, but stays, as we do,
detached, and totally aware.