What Is Found There

Maple, oak, poplar, gingko
New leaves, “new green” on a rock ledge
Of steep little uplift, tucked among trees
Hot sun dapple—
        wake up.

Roll over and slide down the rockface
Walk away in the woods toward
A squirrel, toward
Rare people! Seen from a safe distance,
A murmur of traffic approaching,
Siren howls echoing
Through the gridlock of structures,
Vibrating with helicopters,
        the bass tone
                of a high jet.

        Leap over the park stone wall
        Dressed fast and light,
        Slip into the migrating flow

New York like a sea anemone
Wide and waving in the Sea of Economy,
Cadres of educated youth  in chic costume
Step out to the night life, good food, after work—
In the chambers of prana-subtle power-pumping
Heartbeat buildings  fired
Deep at the bottom, under the basement.
Fired by old merchant marine
Ex-fire tenders  gone now from sea

        to the ships stood on end on the land,
        ex-seamen stand watch at the stationary boilers
        give way to computers,
That monitor heat and the power
        webs undergound;  in the air;
In the Sea  of Information.

Brisk flesh, keen-eyed, streams of people
Curve round the sweep of street corners
        cardboard chunks tossed up in truckbed.
Delicate jiggle, rouge on the nipple,
        kohl under the eye.

Time and Life buildings—sixty thousand people—
Wind ripples the banners
        stiff shudder shakes limbs on the
        planted trees growing new green,

Glass, aluminum, aggegate gavel,
Iron. Stainless steel.
Hollow honeycomb brain-buildings owned by

Columbia University, the landlord of
Anemone
        colony
Alive, in the Sea of Information

        ”Claus the Wild man”
        Lived mostly with Indians,
        Was there as a witness when the old lady
        ”Karacapacomont”
        Sold the last bit of Washington Heights, 1701

        Down deep grates hear the watercourse,
        Rivers that never give up
        Trill under the roadbed, over the bedrock
        A bird angles way off a brownstone
        Couloir that looks like a route.

Echo the hollowing darkness.
Scatter on bedrock, crisscrossing light threads
Gleam squeals up the side streets,
One growl shadow
 in an egg of bright fights,
Lick of black on the tongue.
Echoes of sirens come down the walled canyons
Foot lifts to the curb and the lights change—

And look up at the Gods
Equitable god, Celanese god, noble line,
Old Union Carbide god,
Each catching  shares of the squared blocked shadow
Each swinging in sun-dial arc of the day
        more than the sum of its parts.
The Guggenheims, the Rockefellers, and the Fricks,
Assembling the art of the world, the plate glass
Window lets light in on “the water lilies”
Like fish or planets, people,
Move, pause, move  through the rooms,
White birch leaves shiver in breezes
While guards watch the world,
Helicopters making their long humming trips
Trading pollen and nectar
In the air
        of the
Sea of  Economy,

Drop under the streetworld
Steel squeal of stopping and starting
Wind blows through black tunnels
        spiderwebs, fungus, lichen.

Gingko trees of Gondwanaland. Pictographs,
Petroglyphs, cover the subways—
Empty eye sockets of buildings just built
Soul-less, they still wait the ceremony
        that will make them too,
                new, Big
                City Gods,
Provided with conduit, cable and pipe,
They will light up, breathe cool air,
Breathe the minds of the workers who work there—
The cloud of their knowing
As they soar in the sky, in the air,
Of the Sea
Of Information,

        Cut across alleys and duck beneath trucks.
        ”Under Destruction”—trash chair at the curb—
        Stop to gaze on the large roman letters
        Of writing on papers that tell of Economy,

Skilsaw whine slips through the windows
Empty room—no walls—such clear air in the cellar
Dry brick, cooked clay, rusty house bodies
Carbide blade skilsaw cuts bricks. Squalls
From the steps leading down to the subway.
Blue-chested runner, a female, on car streets,
Red lights block traffic but she like the
Beam of a streetlight in the whine of the Skilsaw,
        She runs right through.

        A cross street leads toward a river
        North returns to the woods
        South takes you fishing
        Peregrines nest at the thirty-fifth floor

Streetpeople rolling their carts
        of whole households
Or asleep wrapped in light blue blanket
        spring evening, at dusk, in a doorway,
Eyeballing aretes and buttresses rising above them,
        con domus, dominion,
                domus,
        condominate, condominium
Towers, up there the
Clean crisp white dress white skin
        women and men
Who occupy sunnier niches,
Higher up on the layered stratigraphy cliffs, get
More photosynthesis, flow by more ostracods,
        get more sushi,
Gather more flesh, have delightful
Cascading laughs,

        - Peregrine sails past the window
        Off the edge of the word-chain
        Harvesting concepts, theologies,
        Snapping up bites of the bits bred by
        Banking
         ideas and wild speculations
        On new information–
         and stoops in a blur on a pigeon,

As the street-bottom feeders with shopping carts
Slowly check out the air for the fall of excess,
Of too much, flecks of extra,
From the higher-up folks in the sky

        As the fine dusk gleam
        Lights a whole glass side of
        Forty some stories

        Soft liquid silver,

Beautiful buildings we float in, we feed in,

        Foam, steel, gray

Alive  in the Sea of Information.

From Mountains and Rivers Without End, 1996

Gary Snyder