View from the Front Steps: Morris Street, South Philly

I sit in front of the house late in the afternoon, reading, greeting neighbors as they pass. I look up, ask myself: what do I see in the scene before me that is new, that I've never seen before? Nothing is ever the same--if only we learn to see in the moment. This is what I tell my students. Shouldn't I try to be as good as my word? I open my journal: an exercise in awareness.

Views from the front steps:
Morris Street, South Philly
May 13, 2008

Sparrow perched
on sky crossed
lines, eclectic
verbs
birdlike fly

blue or brick
or green tendriled
porch rail vine

lintels painted white
in rows

a dandelion parachute
a neighbor
nods in passing

Cortege, corsage
brave
flower

pinned
to sleeve

in lieu of heart

May 14

Rose leaves in threes
waltz
in trembling semaphores of air

Sign

to passersby

who cannot hear
the song, but note
the time and mark
the hour

counting numberless
the ways

a wise man sees

May 15

There!
       (Full stop!)
above
this riverwash of words

single
silent
             hawk--

hush!

of wing on wing
neither crow-like churns and rows but

turns
on moving battlements
of cloud

climbing castled column
           invisible turret
               winding

                   stairways
                       of air