Radio:

WIP – Philadelphia (610AM  and 94.1FM) – The Peter Solomon Public Affairs Show – Interview with Rick Black on the new Virgilio book

WKYW 1060AM

WHYY – NPR public radio story – Philadelphia (90.9FM)

Print:

The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Philadelphia City Paper

Rutgers Today, an in-house online publication that reaches 30,000 university faculty, staff and students

Moreover, Inside Jersey, a mass circulation magazine in New Jersey, has slated a Virgilio feature for June. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get some national press coverage, too. If you haven’t checked it out yet, the Mann Library’s Daily Haiku is featuring a poem of Nick Virgilio each day for the entire month of May.

Festivities began on Friday, April 27th, at the Paul Robeson Library of Rutgers University in Camden, N.J., where a luncheon program was held to mark the opening of a new exhibition, “American Haiku Masters” and the publication of the new book, Nick Virgilio: A Life in Haiku. Elizabeth Moser, who just completed a master’s thesis on Virgilio, curated the exhibition, which highlights the book art and haiku collection of Pamela Miller Ness as well as original manuscripts of Virgilio, photos, and a multi-media show of haiku books and poems.

“I was first drawn to haiku and its depth of feeling because of Nick Virgilio and his poems about the death of his brother, Larry, in Vietnam,” said Rick Black, publisher of Turtle Light Press, which just released the new volume to coincide with National Poetry Month. “Essentially, Nick was my teacher, even though I never met him, and when I found out that there were 100s if not 1,000s of unpublished haiku,  I was slightly incredulous.”

“‘You must be kidding me?’” I said to myself. “One of the best poets that this country has ever produced and his stuff has gone unpublished for more than 20 years?”

Other speakers included Dean Kriste Lindenmeyer, English Department Chair Dr. Geoff Sill, Curator Elizabeth Moser, Editor Raffael de Gruttola, and Nick Virgilio Haiku Association President Henry Brann.

On Sunday, April 29th, a community reading of the new Virgilio book was held at Sacred Heart Church with about 75 people. A stage was decorated with a large photo of Nick and, along with some flowers, a large spread of wine and cheese was put out for folks in the back of the hall. Father Michael Doyle, the pastor of the church and a good friend of Nick’s, read part of his tribute to Nick that is in the new book:

“A daily routine for Nick was boarding the bus to the Reading Terminal in Philadelphia. There, after he smelled the fruit and the fish, the breads and the bacon, he talked to people. Sometimes he’d start a conversation with, “Get a load a this!” as he tried out a haiku on a startled man or woman on a lunch break.”

Street mural with one of Nick's poems

One of the most moving moments was a reading by Matt Mezzacappa, who played Larry Virgilio in the play, Nick of Time…Nick of Time. He read what are informally known as “The Larry Poems,” a series of haiku about the death of Nick’s youngest brother Larry in Vietnam. Here are a few of them:

my little brother
with a spider in his hand:
a gift for mother

flag-covered coffin:
the shadow of the bugler
slips into the grave

atop the town flagpole,
a gob of bubblegum
holds my dead brother’s dime

Another of the most magical times was when members of the audience picked out a poem from a basket that was circulated around and came up to read, each one reciting another one of Nick’s poems. Some were old favorites, others were new ones that had never been heard before. Each person read in their own tone and timbre, young and old, white and black. One after another, people stepped up to the stage to share  haiku that still reflect — some 23 years after Virgilio’s death — our times.

Here are a handful of pictures — more pix are posted on the Turtle Light Press Facebook page…enjoy!

Crowd of 100,000 people at the Japanese Street Festival in Washington D.C.

At 8 a.m. on Saturday, April 14^th, I met Lee Giesecke of the Towpath haiku group – the local D.C. chapter of the Haiku Society of America – at a metro stop with my car packed full of tables, extra chairs, tablecloths, straw baskets, easels, sumi-e paintings, some regal sunflowers, magenta tulips, a large variety of haiku books to browse through and others to give away, haiku pamphlets, brochures and flyers, and a very large, welcoming balloon.

The plan was to meet Lee and drive together to the Fifty-Second Annual Sakura Matsuri Japanese Street Festival in order to set up a booth for the Haiku Society of America. It was perfect weather for a street festival – low 70s, sunny, light breeze.

Luckily, the traffic was light. The sun illuminated the bridges and their arched shadows on the Potomac. We exited the highway onto Constitution Avenue which runs parallel and adjacent to the Mall. At about Sixteenth Street, the street was blocked off for the parade, which was to include large floats, marching bands, singers and performers, but I was able to flash my festival access pass and the police allowed us to whisk through the deserted street.

At 9^th Street, we turned up towards Pennsylvania Avenue – the street that links the capitol and the White House – and then were allowed into the blocked off area for the festival. I weaved in and out of vendors setting up their booths and a few isolated pedestrians until we came to our location on 13^th and E Streets. We were right across the street from Freedom Plaza, where the “Occupy D.C.” protests had taken place and demonstrators had camped out for months.

The best thing about our booth location, though, was that we were the first booth as people entered the fair and adjacent to us was a large, empty macadam surface that immediately got me thinking, “Hmmn. That could be a very interesting space!” The first challenge was to figure out how to set up the tables. We had a canopy and two 10 foot tables. After talking it over, we decided to place the tables in a “V” so that the open end was at the front of the booth, thus making it an inviting space for people to come inside.

We unloaded everything from the car and, while I went to park, Lee put up the big,  blue “Haiku Society of America” banner. It took about an hour to arrange everything. I had made a few haiga for the event, blending photos of D.C. that I had taken with cherry blossom haiku poems by Basho, Kikaku, Nick Virgilio and Susan Antolin.

We strung up the haiga at the entrance to the booth and I positioned a large, framed sumi-e painting there to attract attention, too. Lastly, we put a small table at the front stocked with free books, all of the wonderful haiku brochures from Towpath and the Haiku Poets of Central Maryland, the Haiku Foundation and others.

Here, I have to mention a remarkable Japanese poet – Murasaki Sagano who lost her mother in the tsunami. She had found out about the festival and donated a dozen or so of her own books, “Mother’s Voice” and “Haiku Flowers and Trees,” saying that she hoped they would provide comfort to others.

So, I put out her books and others on the front table. And then I added a sheet with a half-humorous “Haiku I.Q. Quiz” that I had made up for people to take:

1. A haiku is a car, a poem or a Japanese vegetable?
2. Who wrote a famous haiku poem about a frog…?
3. Haiku must have 17 syllables in three lines of 5-7-5 – true or false?
4. Issa was a great Japanese baseball player – true or false?

And then the flow of visitors began. It started as a trickle, then increased in intensity as the day went on. People would just look at the booth, astonished, and say, “I didn’t know there was a Haiku Society of America.” That was the most oft-repeated phrase that I heard throughout the day!

As Lee greeted visitors, I turned the open macadam space into an area where people could write haiku with chalk and/or markers. I set up a couple of large cardboard poster boards and tied them to the fence, then put out a bunch of chalk and markers. It was easy to engage people with the haiku quiz, give them a free pencil and ask if they’d like to write a haiku or not. Before it got too crowded, I helped a number of people, both adults and children, write their first poem. Most would begin by trying to count syllables – and that was the first thing I would tell them.

“Just throw the syllable thing out the window – don’t worry about it,” I would say. “Brief, nature, now – that’s all you need right now. What’s the first thing that comes into your mind about the day?”

Or, some variation thereof. And then they would be off and running. Some people got it, others needed a little more help but everyone had fun. Most also drew a picture to go along with their haiku. Or they would write their poems in funky ways, not simply three straight lines. Here are some of the poems that people wrote:

perfect day
scent of a chicken
on a stick!

trees
nice day
smiling

a warm breeze
spring has arrived
but not for me

And a drawing of a cat with this haiku framing it: mice are delicious…the bones are much too crunchy

The main challenge of the day was disillusioning people about the 5-7-5 syllable count. Everyone, absolutely everyone, if they knew or thought they knew anything about haiku, would tell us that a haiku had to have a 5-7-5 syllable count. Even when we told them that it wasn’t so, a few people simply refused to believe it. The idea has been so strongly inculcated in people’s minds from grade school that it’s hard for them to give it up. Many people, though, were surprised and grateful to learn that a haiku does not have to follow a 5-7-5 syllable count. It was liberating for them – as though someone had just given them permission to play, to write without the constraints of having to count syllables on their fingers.

By about noon, Lee headed home and haiku poet Gary Hotham and his wife, Karen, showed up to lend a hand. The crowd was increasing, I had less time to write haiku with folks but it didn’t matter. The area was taking on a life of its own as people began to notice the haiku scrawled on the street. Around 1:30 p.m. Gary and Karen left and I was on my own. With the end of the parade, people started flocking to the festival; our booth must have been ten deep with people browsing, asking questions about haiku, are there local chapters, etc. when a 10-year-old Japanese girl said to me, “I can’t find my parents. I don’t know where they are!”

“Okay, “ I thought. “I have a booth full of people and I have a lost little girl.”

So, I took her over to the nearby entrance to the festival and spoke with one of the attendants while the little girl vainly scanned the thousands of people in the street. The attendant took out her cell phone and asked for a phone number. Luckily, the little girl knew her parents’ phone number and, even before they answered their phone, she spotted them on the other side of the street and dashed into her mother’s arms.

Back to the booth…around 2 p.m., Mary Wuest of the Towpath group showed up. The two of us fielded questions from folks as the flyers, brochures and pencils disappeared. By about 3 p.m., we were out of flyers so I brought a sign-up guest book to the front table — but, of course,  people often didn’t sign in any legible way. We continued to talk with folks about haiku, give them the quiz, offer information about HSA – and, of course, invited them to write a haiku in chalk or the guest book.

By now, the haiku chalk area had spread over a 50 x 50 foot space – all different colors, types of poems, drawings. It was perfect for kids and adults who wanted to pen a poem. I got a little bit more of a break when my wife, Laura, arrived around 3 p.m. to help out. After a quick snack, I took off with a camera to take some pictures of the booth and the rest of the festival.

The streets were completely packed with people from one side to the other, watching Japanese drummers or performers faking a sword fight, drinking Japanese beer or buying souvenirs. Overall, we must have had at least 1,000 people or more at our booth. Many people went away with a book, a brochure, a flyer, a bookmark, or a pencil – and the happy memory of writing haiku.

For more photos, see Rick’s personal Facebook page.

The book is a treasure trove of 100 uncollected and unpublished haiku plus a sampling of about 30 old favorites. Edited and introduced by Raffael de Gruttola, the book also contains a lengthy interview with Nick on WHYY radio, two essays by him about the craft of haiku, an afterword by Kathleen O’Toole, a moving tribute by Father Michael Doyle, photos and facsimile pages of the original manuscripts.

We will be holding two “official” book launches in April in Camden, N.J., where Nick lived most of his life. The first will be at The Robeson Library of Rutgers University on Friday, April 27, at noon; it will feature an exhibition of Nick’s papers, book art, haiku journals and remarks by the publisher, editor and curator as well as a short reading of poems.

The second “official” launch will be on Sunday, April 29, at 2 p.m. at Sacred Heart Church, where there will be a community reading and remarks by Monsignor Michael Doyle, Rick Black, Raffael de Gruttola, Henry Brann and others. More details to come soon…

So far, two events have been scheduled: an exhibition of original Virgilio manuscripts and memorabilia at the Paul Robeson Rutgers-Camden University Library, which will host a program in honor of the occasion on April 27th, and a book launch at Sacred Heart Church in Camden on Sunday, April 29. More details to follow as soon as we have them but note those two dates.

The picture to the left, courtesy of Father Michael Doyle of Sacred Heart Church, shows a granite podium inscribed with Nick’s most famous poem. It was designed by artist and woodcarver Bob McGovern of Narberth, Pennsylvania, and installed by Nick’s graveside in 1991 so that others could read their haiku at future memorial ceremonies.

Meanwhile, a first round of reading of the 2012 TLP haiku chapbook contest entries has been completed. Each of the two judges, Rick Black and Kwame Dawes, read the manuscripts and judged them independently. Manuscripts came in from America, Canada, Ethiopia, Germany, England, Ireland, Japan and New Zealand.

“It’s going to be a tough choice to single out a winner,” said Black, the founder of TLP.  “We are grateful to everyone who entered the contest and shared their work with us. While we can only publish one winner, we will have some good news for other entrants, too.”

After further consultations and a follow-up round of reading, the judges will announce the winner in mid-February. It promises to be an exciting time so keep checking our website, Facebook or blog to see who takes the prize in a very competitive field.

Manuscripts so far have come in from America, Canada, Ethiopia, Germany, England, Ireland, Japan and New Zealand. Over the next few weeks, judges Kwame Dawes and Rick Black will be reading the entries independently and carefully, then will consult with each other at the end of January and make an announcement in February as to the winner.

It promises to be an exciting time. Updates on the competition as well as other TLP projects, such as a new collection of Nick Virgilio’s haiku due out in the spring, will be posted on our website, sent out via our blog and posted on our  TLP Facebook page, so feel free to follow us in any of these places.

Last but not least, some surprising news awaits the entrants to this year’s competition as we move ahead, so keep an eye out!

Thanks to each of you for entrusting your poems to us!

Kwame Dawes and Rick Black

Inside the ornate embassy, a collection of about 50 photos by Daphne Dougall Hogg de Zileri — who remained largely unknown in her lifetime outside of the artistic elite of Peru — were hung tastefully in black frames with almost stucco like mattes, no glass separating the viewer from the black and white prints. She started by taking photos of her own children — and, indeed, there are several on view here — and taught herself from studying photos of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Dorothea Lange, and other greats.

You can get a good sense of her work from this YouTube video — Soliloquios de Daphne Dougall de Zileri. A short intro in Spanish is followed by a beautiful slideshow of many of her best photos. Clearly, she has an eye for composition and contrast — of her daughter set against the undulating, rippling sands of the desert; of a child seemingly holding the sun in tiny hands; of a lone soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. Often, she photographed the ordinary and made it seem eternal.

As Antonio Cisneros, a poet, said about her work, “Eyes see things as ordinary. It is the heart that lifts them to the extraordinary.” Or Cesar Hildebrandt, a leading journalist in Peru, who said,  “An artist does not need a massacre to move us.”

Indeed, she does not. In Daphne’s photos of everyday Peru and elsewhere around the world, there is a quiet magic and intensity that seems to match her own personality. One particularly striking photo shows a pregnant woman, highlighting her swollen belly, the eyes and top of the head of the pregnant mother cut off by the frame of the picture so that both mother and child remain locked in mystery.

In fact, Zileri often photographs people whose faces are either hidden by a newspaper or cut off in the frame of the image, revealing the surface patterns of light and dark while creating a sense of mystery about them. She never sought the limelight and died last month of asthma complications at the age of 75. As Hildebrandt said, “She loved the light as much as the shadows.”

The show is on view through Wednesday, Nov. 30, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., free, at the Embassy of Peru. 1700 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C.

Tonight was the first night that I exhibited the images. A boutique shopping night was sponsored by MONA — Moms of North Arlington, a group of mostly women (and some Dads, including moi!) who pool references on everything from who’s a good doctor to where to buy a new crib. They also have a listserve for folks to sell stuff.

Around 5 p.m., I packed up our tiny car and headed over to the Knights of Columbus, where the affair was being held. Attendants were treated to great desserts — I did sample one delicious chocolate chip cookie — and drinks, and then were free to stroll around and shop at more than 30 vendors who had come in to offer their wares, selling everything from fine chocolates to hair ties.

Here are some shots of the nearby Westover Village that I took and reimaged as paintings. This shot was taken right behind the 7/11 at the corner of — gosh, I  can’t remember the intersection of streets here but maybe someone will recognize it and let me know.

Then, I headed over towards the main shopping strip of Westover Village and took a few shots of the library. I decided to crop the image as a horizontal piece to emphasize the lovely grasses in front of the building.

It’s late now and I need some sleep but here’s one more shot of the nearby W & O D trail that runs right by our house. I have spent many mornings out cycling here. It runs parallel to a stream bed and crosses it off and on — that is, especially if you cross over to Four Mile Run.

Stay tuned for more shots of Westover Village, the W & O D Trail, and Dominion Hills. It was great meeting everyone tonight — especially my new neighbors!

You can take a peek at or purchase the first winner, Sketches From the San Joaquin, by Michael McClintock by going to this link: http://www.turtlelightpress.com/products/sketches-from-the-san-joaquin/ Hope this is helpful — we look forward to getting your entries!

ON SELECTING THE 2008 TURTLE LIGHT PRESS CHAPBOOK WINNER –

By Rick Black

I’d like to talk today about the Turtle Light Press haiku chapbook competition that I first announced right here in Ottawa at a Haiku Canada gathering, then Guy Simser and I will read the winner, Sketches from the San Joaquin by Michael McClintock, and take questions from you. Originally, Michael was going to come to the HNA conference but the cost turned out to be prohibitive. He sends his deep regrets but perhaps through a reading of his book we’ll be able to have a sense of him here in the room with us.

We got 21 submissions from around the world – Canada, U.S., England, Germany, Romania, even Nepal, from both experienced and neophyte haiku poets. It was a pleasure to read the entries, all of which contained some stellar haiku poems that we’re going to publish this fall/winter as an e-anthology, so please do check our website in a couple of months. We’ll have links and a little biographical info about each of the writers.

I judged the contest with Kwame Dawes, a poet who I met and became close to when I lived in South Carolina. Originally from Jamaica, Kwame is a prolific poet and critic, a professor of English at the Univ. of Nebraska who has studied haiku deeply even though he doesn’t often write in the form. What were we looking for? Overall, we were looking for a collection that held together, that made us want to turn the page from one haiku to the next. I won’t use the word narrative because there doesn’t need to be a progression per se from A to B, but there does have to be a unity, a focal point, an idea, a subject, a motif – call it what you will. It wasn’t enough just to put together a collection of beautiful yet unconnected poems. As for individual poems, we were partial to those that had a kind of ripple, an emotional ripple to them as opposed to a closed sensibility.

Haiku are like snapshots, or flashes of a firefly at night, and we wanted the poems to resonate, to illuminate different aspects of the night. Each of us read the anonymous manuscripts – my wife kept a record of them – made notes on the strengths and weaknesses of each ms., and then we talked to each other on the phone. While our top ten lists were different, we both had selected the same one, Sketches from the San Joaquin as the winner. What drew us to it? The ms. had a flow to it, from one season to the next, from present to past to present again, from one crop to another. It was about growing up in the San Joaquin Valley and helping out in the family’s orchards and fields, and how the author’s relationship to the valley changed over the years. For those unfamiliar with it – and I was clueless, too – the San Joaquin valley is one of the most fertile places on earth. That’s where most of North America’s fruits and vegetables come from. It’s the breadbasket of the world. Fresno, Bakersfield – these are some of the towns that dot the valley which is framed by mountains in the east. Besides a deep sense of place, of rootedness, the individual haiku were exquisite.

As we  wrote in the contest winner’s announcement, “We have a sense that McClintock has found in the sparseness and precision of the meditative manner of haiku an opportunity to reflect on space and time – granting even the most intimate detail a simplicity that allows it to resonate with mood and meaning. To be able to achieve this quality while offering us insight into the details of his own life amounts to quite an accomplishment. With each successive poem, McClintock leads the reader more deeply into the valley and his remembrances of life there.”

The collection wasn’t perfect – there were some poems that didn’t work for us or needed to be edited, others that we wanted rearranged, the last poem of the original ms. in particular. But it was close enough. There were a number of strong contenders but this was the one that stood out the most to us.

The next part of the process was to edit the poems with  Michael. Haiku are so tight – it’s very hard to suggest one change because it often affects the whole poem. But Michael and I were agreed on the need to evoke “the original scent,” the emotional nugget that prompted the writing of the poem – and if it added to this, we made the change; if not, we left it as it. I gave Michael the final say in this regard for these were, in the end, his poems.  When I was done with the ms., Kwame went through it, too and gave us his feedback.

Overall, two questions arose in this process: how much can you change a ms, replace poems that might not work? The author had won a competition, that’s what was judged, but we also wanted to make it the best book possible. I had to figure out what I felt comfortable with. Ultimately, it came down to replacing 5 or 6 poems out of 41, 15 percent of the original ms. The second question was how much can you reorder the ms? Essentially, I didn’t want to. I liked the feel of the book as Michael had submitted it, but there were a few poems, including the last one, that didn’t work in the original order. Michael was great to work with, open to change but with definite, strong views about his work.

Once we had a final ms., it was time to get to work on the design and layout. This is always a challenge and fun. Being a small press, where I make all of the books by hand, I like to give authors as much say as possible in these matters so will be a book they’ll treasure, too. Michael and I worked well together; he wanted to keep it simple and so did I. The first decision was: should the book be done profile or landscape? I always thought of it as a landscape book – literally, a landscape – as mirroring the fields of the valley and its colors. Ultimately, I chose this mustard color with a bit of texture, of bite, for the cover. Inside, wanted a kind of paper that had an earthy sense to it, too. I found the cover photo by chance after some web research and bought the rights from the photographer. I particularly liked the crimson of the vineyard and the road leading into it, into the valley, into the poems. I gave the photo some rough edges to evoke the sense of a sketch, too.

Sketches from the San Joaquin – it was a great title to work with visually. I had unexpected help from Michael’s wife, Karen, who is an artist. I used one of her images on the title page and another on the back. After Michael approved the dummy I started making the books. I did a first run of 100 copies and have brought some with me – please feel free to come by the Turtle Light Press table.

I work alone in my basement studio, making one book at a time. After laying out the book in a graphics program, I printed the signatures in batches of 8-10 copies at a time. Then, I cut all the pages on a large guillotine paper cutter, four pages to a sheet of 8.5 by 11 for this book; then, cut all the covers from big sheets – chose the Thai mango paper as a contrast in color and texture to the cover. It’s kind of a meditative process: Fold the signature with a bone folder, punch holes with a bodkin – like an awl – sew the book, glue on the covers, press the books for 24 hours. Takes 20-25 minutes per book. It’s very slow, but I enjoy the tactile process of working with my hands.

I hope you’ll all consider entering our upcoming chapbook competition – it should be a lot of fun, a good way for me to give back to the haiku community and for poets to put together a collection and get a book out of it. You can go to http://www.turtlelightpress.com and click on “Haiku Contest” to see the guidelines.

We would like to read Michael’s book now, then take any questions that you might have. I am posting ten of the haiku in no particular order here.

Sketches from the San Joaquin

By Michael McClintock

not green itself

but a hint of it—

the slanting spring light

above the trees

a mountain has melted

into haze

having no thought

we’ve come to see them—

dogwoods in bloom

all day in spring,

the deer cross the high meadow

into the clouds . . .

done for the day

my dad brings to supper

the smell of turned earth

with no kites in the sky

the wind

moves on

April funeral—

the weeping mother neatens

her son’s perfect hair

all there is

between heaven and earth—

towering clouds

first light . . .

the wide-awake hats

in the lettuce field

muggy night . . .

the child’s moon drawing

taped to the fridge

We have had a special relationship with Greenwood House ever since Rick’s Aunt Sylvia had to move there due to severe Alzheimer’s. She was given superb care for more than 10 years and lived to be 98 years old.  He still likes to visit the nurses, aides and staff who helped take care of her whenever he’s in the area. The luncheon will be held at the Greenacres Country Club in Lawrenceville, NJ.

Another fun event this month is the annual Open Studio tour in Highland Park. It has been too hectic to open up our studio this year but you can enjoy a small display of TLP’s work at the public library, including handmade books, a haiku accordion album containing poems from a haiku workshop, sumi-e paintings, and some new digital paintings of Highland Park. Maps for the event can be obtained at the library or at the Main Street office on Raritan Avenue.

Lastly, if you’re in the area, come on down to the Highland Park Street Festival on Sunday, May 22, rain or shine. We’ll have new Highland Park pix, books, notecards, and sumi-e paintings. We hope to see you at our booth. Mention this blog post and you will get a 10 percent discount off your order.

Hope everyone is having a great spring!

Speaking of misusing technology, I happened to be in New York City yesterday and decided to go down to the World Trade Center, where President Obama was coming in order to lay a wreath at the memorial. I took the #3 train from Grand Central to the Fulton Street subway station, grabbed a bite to eat and then walked over to the site. Police were already cordoning off the area so that people couldn’t wander around freely.

Being the former reporter that I am, I meandered about, weaving in and out of the crowds, watching people, jotting down notes and making my way around the site like a Buddhist monk circumambulating a temple. Indeed, upon my return home, I wrote this poem rather than a news article as I had used to do. It is my report for you and whoever else might want to read it.  Perhaps it will provide some small measure of consolation. . .

A Crowd of Tulips

A crowd of tulips gathers

to watch President Obama lay a wreath

at the World Trade Center memorial –

yellow, pink, red headed tulips,

headless tulips.

(“We need a president, not a puppet,” reads a sign.)

By red and white “No standing anytime signs,”

droves of people stand waiting, too,

their cameras raised like salutes.

A plane disappears in a cloud.

Television crews, construction crews,

a beggar in a wheelchair (we are all beggars now, aren’t we?)

extends a beaten-up coffee cup to passers-by.

People speak Italian, Spanish, German, and English,

(a mother and daughter pose for a snapshot, smiling –

and then the smile disappears),

cranes are reflected in glass skyscrapers,

flags flap in the cool breeze,

the anticipation of the president’s arrival is palpable,

people gawking, scouting around like pigeons, searching.

They would open a window to see,

but there is no window — and no door to the dead.

Another sign: “National September 11 Museum Staircase,”

but there are no stairs to climb to heaven.

And others: “Jesus Christ is alive for everyone.”

“Fight terror with tefillin.” 

And hands, the laying on of hands – on phones,

on planes, on guns,

hands reaching out, hands laying a wreath,

hands, hands, hands.

That’s how tall they were – two and a half times

as big as that building over there.

And standing halfway finished (or, perhaps a third),

like a flag at half-mast, the cranes reaching up into the sky

atop it like fingers, grasping at nothing at all,

is the new trade center

like a one-legged soldier,

massive, headless and shoulder-less,

attempting to fill a gaping hole in the city,

an emptiness at its heart.

No generators droning today,

no construction equipment crawling around

or sounds of drilling –

all still, Caterpillar CAT  TOMCON,

paused to acknowledge this moment

when no one is being killed.

Waiting, waiting, waiting –

hard hats, baseball hats, knit hats, no hats,

white sneakers, blue and silver sneakers,

black, brown, beige shoes.

Nearby is a flag of honor

with all of the names of those who perished,

printed in red and blue stripes –

her young hands holding it down so it won’t flutter in the wind,

and so that they can take a picture,

hands reaching out to touch the name of a loved one –

a husband, a mother, a father, a sister.

And in the silence of the afternoon

tears break through the police barriers,

they will come, yes, they will come.

They will flood the earth

and they will come.