LATE SUMMER POEM

You must have seen it, at a crepuscule shore;   

It strikes as lightning does, trembling the sky,     

with summer rose and lilacs calling "more,"  

and the flash of white egrets as they fly.     

You must have heard it, crickets in the dusk,  

the flap of water on smooth stone and bark,  

the sound of a lone loon in the summer musk,  

the breath of your lover as she speaks in the dark.       

Self-centered, we cannot see God in ourselves,   

and in others we too often miss the divine;  

in nature, not ours, we sense eternal lives   

for a moment alive in our chattering minds.   

MADISON SQUARE PARK, 5:29 A.M.

Dawn: I wake in the park, face puffy and red;

Liquid, brown tallboys, broken glass, at my head.

The bench is cool, my shoes are gone, my fishnet stockings torn;

I wish I were elsewhere, lived differently, was safe, or never born.  

Policemen tell me, broke and blackly bruised, to move along;

I find cardboard in the garbage, make a sign, sing a song.

A teenager stops, sings with me, and blushing. averts his eyes;

Women pass, scorn me, prouder than they might be otherwise.

A businessman winks, gives nothing; a serviceman gives a buck.

Men hang out windows; one screams obscenities from his truck.

What some men will hit on, eagerly, still astonishes me;

You are never too sick, too dirty, or too old, apparently.