By Alicia Ostriker
It sweeps away depression and today
you can’t tell the heaped pin-white
cherry blossoms abloom along
Riverside Drive from the clouds above
it is all kerfluffle, all moisture and light and so
into the wind I go
past Riverside Church and the Fairway
Market, past the water treatment plant
and in the dusky triangle below
a hulk of rusted railroad bed
a single hooded boy is shooting hoops
It’s ten minutes from here to the giant bridge
men’s engineering astride the sky heroic
an animal roar of motors on it
the little red lighthouse at its foot
big brother befriending little brother
in the famous children’s story
eight minutes back with the wind behind me
passing the boy there alone shooting
his hoops in the gloom
A neighborhood committee
must have said that space
should be used for something recreational
a mayor’s aide must have said okay
so they put up basketball and handball courts
and if it were a painting or a photo
you would call it American loneliness
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On Saturday we took Daniel to the airport to fly to San Francisco, where he's visiting friends before meeting us in Los Angeles for our niece Noelle's wedding later this month. Then we dropped Adam off at N.I.H. to work, since his research group has a big presentation next week and they needed to prepare for it. And then we headed to Brookside Gardens, which had another Pokevent like the one we went to in April except this time there were raids. We saw several frogs, many turtles, two green herons, some geese, and lots of Pokemon:
From the park, we went to Lebanese Taverna for lunch and across the street to get kitty litter (I visited Michael's next door and found they were moving the Halloween merchandise onto shelves). We stopped at Giant before finally going home for a couple of hours to feed the cats and do chores before going to pick up Adam from his internship. None of us was very hungry, so I had a piece of leftover pizza while watching the Orioles before the nail-biting penultimate episode of Orphan Black. Leave Helena's babies alone, you monsters!
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