Central Park
Noble Collins
Tom Howard/John H. Reid Poetry Contest 2006 (view all the winners)
Most Highly Commended
Close by the window
of my second-story flat
runs the El.
Pigeons walk carelessly along the tracks
fluttering away just in time.
You can adjust
to violent noise,
room-shaking vibration,
rude interruptions.
Well, maybe not completely,
all the time,
but repetition dulls your senses.
The colors in my world are brown, gray, black,
red brick;
no green,
no blue.
I ride the Subway to Central Park
to see green and blue,
and to hear soft sounds,
warm, musical sounds,
human sounds.
I see and I hear,
neither seen nor heard.
Paper advertisements float gently to the curb—
flyers that do not fly:
Dritan Luca will sing Rigoletto at The Met.
Simon and Garfunkel are at Carnegie Hall.
I will wear earphones and listen to recordings,
as rail cars rattle by my window.
Life ebbs through me slowly,
like an IV drip.
Wednesdays are the worst, I think—
the doldrums.
Nothing begins or ends on a Wednesday—
a stagnant, oppressive land-fill for Time,
a way station
like my life.
Sundays are the best.
There are fewer trains.
One rainy Sunday I rode the Subway
to Saint Pat's.
My Parish was closed for vacation.
It was early summer,
and the tourists had not yet arrived in great number,
and I lit three candles.
(I could not think of giving Confession there)
I just want you to know that I lit three candles
in Saint Patrick's Cathedral.
I did that,
and I carried no umbrella.
And, secretly, one of the candles was for me.
So, tonight, I can smile just a little.
A candle once flickered for me
in Saint Patrick's Cathedral—
so peaceful,
so quiet.
There, among tiers of countless candles,
I was not alone.
