While the sun stops, or
seems to, to define a term
for the indeterminable,
the human aspect, here
in the West Village, spindles
to a mutilated dazzle-
niched shards of solitude
embedded in these brownstone
walkups such that the Hudson
at the foot of Twelfth Street
might be a thing that's
done with mirrors: definition
by deracination-grunge,
hip-hop, Chinese takeout,
co-ops-while the globe's
elixir caters, year by year,
to the resurgence of this
climbing tentpole, frilled and stippled
yet again with bloom
to greet the solstice:
What year was it it over-
took the fire escape? The
roof's its next objective.
Will posterity (if there
is any) pause to regret
such layerings of shade,
their cadenced crests' trans-
valuation of decay, the dust
and perfume of an all
too terminable process?
A Catalpa Tree On West Twelfth Street
Amy Clampitt
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Poem topics: fire, solitude, sun, human, shade, hudson, street, roof, regret, dust, aspect, definition, bloom, objective, year, Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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