Sorry for the long hiatus. I was busy preparing our Muffin Dog Press tree for the St. Eustachius Christmas Tree Festival in Tavistock, Devon, UK. The festival helps support the ongoing upkeep of an ancient church, and is a lot of fun as well. Our theme this year was “A book, a biscuit and a cup of tea.” And yes, I made all the ornaments, except the star on top. Better photos soon.
Still, Advent is here. Whether you are a Christian or not, there is something to celebrate this time of year, and advent simply means “going toward.” I would like to think I'm going toward a bit more expansion in writing and publishing. And I'd like to begin by expanding my gifts to readers. So, here is the final poem in my recent book of poetry, Cow-Tipping and the Deep Blue Sea (which I recently gave away free for two days on Kindle). The poem happens to be about my hometown, New York City.
Christmas in New York
I
One year, we had no money. Well, not much
money. So I went to the library at Lincoln
Center, a performing arts library, checked out
two or three beautiful albums--vinyl, back then--
wrapped them and gave them to my
husband as a temporary Christmas gift,
along with some other little gifts. It was
OK.
II
Manhattan at Christmas is a feast that costs
nothing, as long as you have a roof over
your head and enough food money. Some years,
the lean first years, we bought clothes
at second-hand shops. But in Manhattan, you
get Brooks Brothers suits for ten bucks. Take
such suits to a tailor, for ten more it will
look handmade for you. You can wear that
swell suit to churches where world-class
music is free, or you can throw a buck in
the basket. You can stop by office towers
at lunchtime all season and hear musical
groups put on by Trumps and suchlike to
entertain the peons working there. For a
couple of bucks, you can have a coffee
in Paley Park, vest pocket hideaway
with food kiosk 50 yards from St. Thomas
Church, three-minutes by foot from the angels
at Rockefeller Center.
III
Angels at Rockefeller Center? Angels.
Blowing trumpets down the evergreen
raised beds leading away from Fifth Avenue to
the skating rink. Old folks twirling there because
they can, young folk falling down
because they can't. And the angel
flying in bronze above it, as it has for all
my lifetime. The music. The smell of hot pretzels,
hot chestnuts, hot dogs.
IV
It's not really an angel, that bronze figure above
the skating rink. It's Prometheus, bringing fire
to mankind.
V
Beautiful, Rock Center. So full of art and
music and shops purveying the best
man can do. Once, there was Corne de la Toison d'Or,
the best chocolate. The Best. But then, it left. Rumour
had it that a family feud killed the Belgian
chocolatier. I don't know. But...well...it's New York.
Other delights took its place. (Well, not really.)
VI
I interviewed for a job once in Rock Center,
in one of the great, grey buildings
holding court plunk in the middle
of Midtown, making a web of all the world
before there was the Web. The AP was where
I went, the Associated Press. I didn't get it; I was
too green. Now I'm too riddled with the
expensive evidence of abundant aging. (Oh,
well.)
So I freelanced. Which allowed me the
Freedom of the City.
Especially at Christmas.
VII
Cheap tickets, aficionado tickets up at the top,
for The Nutcracker. They had to be. It was early days,
and I was usually broke. Hours and hours spent inside
St. Thomas, drinking in the Anglican splendors
of a French Gothic building, quiet but for the rumble
of the No. 7 train far below the stone floors. Beautiful
in its quiet, unworldly splendid when the choir sang
before an altar decked with festal cloths, embroidered
in gold thread, topped with gold and silver patens,
chalices, before a reredos of two dozen saints or more in
grey stone, a counterpoint to the rose window
gentling, but improving, the sharp, pale winter New York sun
slanting down for a few hours between the sentinel
office buildings darkening Fifth Avenue one side at a time. A walk
to the carousel in Central Park, twirling in the snowflakes
while kids screamed in glee and mothers paced
frantically, as mother do, outside the pavilion. A long
walk up the East Side to Balto, bronze statue of a dog,
the sled dog that delivered vaccine to Nome in the
bad old days. I could sit on it. Everyone sat on it.
On to the boat lake where kids sailed radio-controlled
sailboats if the pond had not iced over yet. A coffee
there.
VIII
New York is coffee. For the price of coffee,
you can watch the most intricate dances of
humans from inside a cheap cafe, outdoors
at a dear one, or perched at kiosks dotting
the city. Long before Starbucks, Manhattan did
coffee. It's a frantic drink, but that's not why.
New York is not frantic. It has a heart and soul of
purest calm, the calm of knowing that no matter
what, it is the center of the universe. Only
those who have tasted the nectar of desire, and set
off in pursuit, truly understand.
IX
New York is my heart and soul.