Crossing the Square

Squinting through eye-slits in our balaclavas, we lurch across Washington Square Park hunched against the wind, two hooded figures caught in the monochrome, carrying sacks of fruit, as we’ve done for years. The frosted, starch- stiff sycamores make a lean Christmas tree seem to bulk larger, tilted under the arch and still lit in three colors. Once in January, we found a feather here and stuffed the quill in twigs to recall that jay. The musical fountain is here, its water gone, a limestone circle now. Though rap succeeds the bluegrass strains we’ve played in it, new praise evokes old sounds. White branches mimic visions of past storms; some say they’ve heard ghosts moan above this ground, once a potter’s field. No two stones are the same, of course: the drums, the tawny pears we hold, are old masks for new things. Still, in a world where fretted houses with façades are leveled for condominiums, not much has altered here. At least it’s faithful to imagined views. And, after all, we know the sycamore will screen the sky in a receding wind. Now, trekking home through grit that’s mounting higher, faces upturned to test the whirling snow, in new masks, we whistle to make breath-clouds form and disappear, and form again, and O, my love, there’s sun in the crook of your arm.