Poetry & Prose

Moving Meditation

I’m feeling unexpectedly sad here at Carl Schurz Park. We’re sitting on benches in front of the railing. The water’s fins are poking up and down, up and down. East River, Atlantic Ocean. I’m thinking about everything this city has given and taken from me this year. My legs are bare in front of me, carrying bruises like a map of collisions. I see, time and again, how hard it is to leave a place. A child is playing with rock crumbs that adult eyes confuse for the ground. Dog collars jangle. I’m mesmerized by the vocabulary of water. Mesmerized by the range of its choreography. Mesmerized by the three-quarter mozzarella moon. Speedboats carve the water surface into two marbled sheets. I hardly remember the winter. Somehow the things I thought I’d never forgive have been softened or reworked or forgotten. The water is sloppy and sharp, parting and pushing. I’m telling Ella how I like to meditate by closing my eyes and picking out all of the impossible sounds I can decipher.