public art work-Bed-Stuy
This morning was a pretty one–sun shining, warm. Storefronts on Fulton closed until the shopkeepers open them up. Folks clustered at bus stops on their way to work. Many people smiling because sun was shining and it was warm.
Brooklyn is loudly branded as a place for hip White people and hip Black people and occasionally others are mentioned. But it is a place for ordinary people who get up in the morning and go to work in banks’ back offices; for the MTA; clerks at Macy’s or Bloomingdales or in the countless restaurants, bars,hotels, sports centers, juice joints, etc. that make up the “hospitality industry”, and a few work in fashion or media. Paychecks, bills, families,rent or mortgages to pay. So a warm Wednesday morning was most welcome. In Whitman’s prologue to Leave of Grass he catalogues jobs Americans do (did) and it is good that he did. We have a record of those jobs. We have a picture of the people who made their living. We now do some of what they did: we serve food or perform in theaters or exchange money.
Today, the Poetry Foundation posted my essay in the Harriet blog: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2017/04/colloquy-1-words-on-freedom-confusion-resistance-poetry/
and I hope people read my work. I am glad to be part of that industrious mix all the way from Brooklyn.
The cold, then warm, then cold weather is making our green and blooming friends most unhappy–they just want to bloom and get on with it and a few hearty blooms are fighting for show and a flowering tree across the street from a row of daffodils –we all want Spring. Even the plants are working hard.
the only tree flowering
corner yard, Bed-Stuy
purple salutes the green