prospect park

December 14, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

Kip asked me yesterday if i ever missed
Brooklyn

and i said i missed some things,
some people,

i miss Carlos and Jacob and the other babies who would
squeal
with fright/delight as they pet the giant teddy bear
that is Louka.

i miss the unofficial mayor of Flatbush (Joy),
and Mike
and about
half
the people in our building
(not that we dislike the other half,
we just never really met them).

i miss all the vegetarian food places;
El Barrio Burritos,
Zen Vegetarian Chinese food,
and the veggie option at Silver Rice,
and that food-truck that stood at the street-corner near the Q
waiting for me to try one of the falafels
(but i never did…)

i miss the woman selling wares and jewelry and incense from her van
every day
(though we still have plenty of Egyptian Musk to get us through)

and i do miss the vibrancy of
Prospect Park
right next door.

but

here

we have new neighbors to get to know,
new food places to explore
(though i am still in search of good plant-based options),
new parks to meander around,
a backyard,
a road Louka isn’t afraid to walk near,
and the best bagels we’ve had in New York
so…i’m pretty sure we’re winning.

(plus, our old home is simply a train ride
or two
away!)

July 15, 2021

/ HJ / Leave a comment

i’ve started thinking
in poetry.

(even when i wrote in prose
every single morning,
i still only rarely would ponder in words;
usually as a way to plan out
how to describe a certain feeling,
or express a certain something
out loud
to another human being.)

but i’ve started having
words,
phrases,
in poetical form
pop into my head
riding the Q train,
pounding the streets of manhattan,
seeing the sun set
over Prospect Park

and i don’t know how i feel about this…
i, who have always felt some sort of
vindicated otherness
from not thinking in words
(as, i suspect, a slim majority of people do)

but it does bring me joy,
feeling more connected
to this art form.

July 7, half-heartedly edited July 21, 2020

/ HJ / Leave a comment

On my rooftop I see:

1. a green tree across the street
2. a match to the folding chair under me
3. a pigeon, hopping on the next roof, its eyes as red as the
4. red brick apartment across the road
5. a treeline, it might be the park?
6. a metal fence, so I don’t fall off
7. this private rooftop terrace, that my privilege helped get me
8. satellite dishes from DirectTV
9. a/c units sticking out of 6th floor windows
10. clouds and a flash of what may be a rainbow
11. my rainbow hair blowing in the polluted wind
12. no sign nor sight of a way to make this poem end
13. sounds of busses, bodega music, wings flapping, construction; scents of the laundromat around the corner,
and wind, so much wind, against my face, feeling a chill on this hot New York afternoon, perhaps//

a loud boom, a bang, was it from the west or the east?
i strain my neck over the gate, and the only answer i see
is the smell of the garbage truck, stopped on my street.

i have so many unfinished poems written
but not the stomach to stomach the rereading.