Walk Sixteen - PINK MOUNTAINS

Through the filtered windows

of a plant shop, covered in screens

that make the inside

of the shop look misty,

I spot a round box designed

with flying birds of different colors.

All kinds of plants

are shelved against the shop’s windows.

Baby angels are designed

on a building across the street.

Their wings radiate and tease

as if they could just flop off of the building

and into the sky.

I approach the colorful bricks

of an Indonesian restaurant, where,

in the painting on the brick walls,

five children are being pushed

in one carriage, and a yellow brick road

stretches far from the mouth

of a home.

Across the street from the restaurant,

I catch the blinking

of a shining Christmas star

in a window.

The star is held by the

protection of curtains.

Blue, purple, green, and red lights

shoot through the star, indefinitely.

The shoots of color sprout

like a water fountain thrusting itself

high up toward the sky.

I think of my time by the big fountain

in Washington Square Park in NYC

this past summer, and all that co-exists there

on a regular day.

On a wall of someone’s porch,

a painting of mountains, valleys,

roads, and a swirled sun “winks” at me.

A white line of road swirls through

the pink mountains—and blue mountains—

while the sun is red and curls into itself

like a whimsical ball of light.

Reaching Broad street,

beneath the big library,

a statue of a mother

holding her little human, tenderly,

makes me feel at ease.

It holds me in this antagonistic winter breeze.

Her head is tilted to lean into

this smaller version of who she is

and the person in her arms

receives her embrace,

leaning its small body all the way in.

I think of how easily vulnerable

and open a phase this is.

To love and be loved,

to hold and be held by someone,

or something

is a kind of magic I’m grateful for.

the kind of magic that sets my soul on fire

yet sets it to ease.

In those arms, we air out our

fresh grievances,

we laugh,

and we cry.

It’s one of the safest places to be free;

to drop the veil and

express anything other than gratitude.

A big wall,

on the side of a brownstone,

is covered in a mural of Hispanic

male musicians.

Their instruments almost float

through the chilly day.

They’re all lively and delighted;

blowing, playing, singing, stringing

with their hearts

engraving their story into the city.

And in the quiet of the coffee shop

I’ve slipped into,

I see this gorgeous purple sharpa jacket

on someone’s back.

The back of her jacket has an image of

two penguins embracing each other;

one’s head is in the other’s neck,

like the statue of the mother

and the little human held by her.

When I prepare to leave,

putting up my journal,

wrapping up my trash,

and putting on my jackets,

I see a long line of hexagons

stretched down the brick wall

of the cafe,

behind me,

in columns.

They’re drawings made by grade school kids,

4-8th grade,

who intended to draw, in color,

the birthrights we all have (should have)

in the world we live in.

Rainbows, trans-rights images,

BLACK LIVES MATTER drawings,

and all kinds of images sit in these shapes.