There's a part of Brooklyn-- there's
a beautiful neighborhood in Brooklyn,
beautiful maybe is not the first word
most people would use for it but it's
a charming and interesting.
It's called Red Hook.
And it's back where all the port of New York
was, and there are lots of the shipping culture
and the maritime culture is still very strong there.
And there's a pier called the Valentino Pier
and it juts out into what feels like the center of New York
Harbor but of course it is, and it's just however
many meters it is, oh, this is my cue to--
But being there you can, at times,
feel completely surrounded by and embraced by the sea.
And I wrote this poem watching the light on water, which
is like one of my favorite things to do,
is just to watch the light reflected on the water surface.
"The Light."
Isn't it the work of those of us who
work to make new tools with the tools we are given, hammering
matter into matter, more adapted to the hand
than to the memory of a hand, less to the past
than to the path of what comes next?
And isn't it the work of the next adaptation in part
to evince specifically by being what it is, regardless
of detail and whether it wants to or not,
the matter of persistence through change,
the hammering of being into time, which is itself the work?
And so it was I took myself downriver,
early in the midst of the world wide sickness, the light on me
knowledgeable as all light is knowledgeable, silent archive
of everything that happens, it puts you in your place,
the light put me in my place, light on the surface of East
River in March, light July through October,
light at noon on slopes of undulations pearling
for a moment till it gleams up on the peaks, the light
like melon ribbon, light dribbling
from the mouth of a mythical beast like Blake's dragon,
but in effect, closer to a nebulous walrus made of fire.
I am the nebulous walrus made of fire.
I walk among you unrecognized but laughing.
There is so much beauty left to see in this world.
And I became what I am now to see it.