Ode to Saturday Morning
'American' Part 3: Nothing is as they think it is
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Part 3
Nothing is as they think it is
2020
Hello to the white bearded man, faithfully on the stoop of a brownstone, dressed for a Siberian winter, cigarette in mouth, coffee in hand, standing in the foreground of a great steeple.
Hello to the blue sky that has become my closest friend, swallowing me whole in sunshine smiles and listening wind.
Hello to Alexander Hamilton, cast larger than life before the dark stone church, and hello to his watchful eyes.
Hello to the woman on the corner who asks for change but will also accept tea - it's cold in her apartment - and to her friend, the ever-unmasked man with an angel smile always wishing me a blessed day. Hello to the deli manager behind the counter feigning chagrin but smiling secretly.
Hello to the shady corner I frequent, and to the metallic storefront with gilded letters and the windows to the world.
Hello to the gregarious baristas and the neighborhood chatter, to the dogs who know me as the lady on the bench.
Hello to the hint of a community that I rely upon in these socially distanced times, and to the small black coffee I stare into as the warmth rises to traverse the breeze.
Hello to the morning, to the humble routine of soul and sanity, and to the characters that unwittingly star in my Saturday script.
Hello to the bitter gusts that ruffle my pages and tousle my hair and rosy my cheeks; that scathe a writing hand but ease a tired heart and inspire a tired mind.
Hello to my pen and paper, my medicine, my shrink, my great romance, oft neglected but ever affectionate, ever tolerant.
Hello to the reflection of the young woman in the window, lost in inquiry, buried in fiction, reveling in the sickly sweet reality of adulthood unadulterated; to her frozen fingers, scrawling to achieve the unachievable, to the thoughts that flicker through her visage and blind her to what the eye sees.
Hello to Saturday morning, the time when birds sing and old friends gather on the corner, the time that's mine alone but not lonely, a time in which I could dwell for eighty years, in love with the sky and the peace and everyone I meet.