A Walker in the City

I have not been feeling inspired to post here lately, but I wanted to mention Charles Reznikoff, whose compete poems I'm currently reading.  I had a discussion with a friend about the poem "I will go into the ghetto," posted in the link above (which is not its real title; Reznikoff did not title his poems, but numbered them), and my friend noted that the meaning of the poem changes dramatically depending on whether you set it in pre-war New York or pre-war Europe, and again if you transpose it to the present day.  To my mind, however, the poem is inexorably about New York, and, while it evokes images of the old pre-war immigrant Jewish ghettos in Canarsie or the Lower East Side, at the same time it suggests the seed of the artistic endeavor, the quest to find beauty where it is hidden and bring it forth.

One of the things I loved best when I was a very young woman dreaming of beauty was to get on the subway and ride it anywhere, then get out wherever the fancy struck me and walk and walk.  I ended up in all kinds of strange places, talking to strange people, peering into shops and alleyways, feeling especially heartened when I saw a green shoot pushing up through the cracked pavement, or geraniums rallying in a window box.  I passed laundromats, and breathed deeply the intoxicating aroma of damp, freshly-washed clothes drying in the machines; I went to lunch counters and ate what there was; I got back on the subway to head home, carrying with me Jamaican spice buns, quart jars of oregano, bottles of ghee, Chinese face powder and the gold and silver papers hung for luck at the lunar New Year, which I used for stationery.  Occasionally I found myself in places where I was met with veiled hostility, but I didn't really notice, so intent was I on my purpose of discovering and uncovering beauty wherever it resided, just below the surface of things.

the smell of the fields in this street
for only a day or two in spring
is enough for me.

Even now, one can walk into the New York ghetto and smell something wild, free, something fresh, seeming to come up from the earth and the sea.

Here is a poem by Reznikoff -- also, I believe, about New York, in the days when the country encroached upon the city -- in honor of the brutal heat today.

We children used to cross the orchard, the brown earth covered
with little green apples,
into the field beyond;
the grass came up over our knees,
there were so many flowers we did not care to pick any --
daisies and yellow daisies, goldenrod and buttercups.
It was so hot the field smelt of cake baking.

And here is a great multimedia piece about a walker in the city.