At the Great American Health Bar, Manhattan (9/20/14)

Fruit salad and green tea in Manhattan,
all my friends left for Columbia,
writing a poem on a napkin for the first time in months,
perhaps years,
and remembering Brandon Labonte,
for he often wrote poetry on scraps of paper ready to hand,
like this.
I’m waiting to meet a friend from Brooklyn who has a fever,
feeling overwhelmed by life and its sensations.
Sleeplessness, you lay on my thoughts like an ether 
where only slow motion is possible;
but my eyes ache and the colors are bright, 
and the streets and the people have the pace of normal life,
or a greater pace still.
For such a city life, I suppose,
is not so suited to what we evolved to thrive in,
no matter how typical it may be now-
how desirable, how exhilarating.
I am reminding myself of what Caitlin said about seeing people,
and even these many strangers, in the light of eternity,
each having God within,
a path that is right for only them,
no matter how similar it may seem to other paths.
The great muchness of things notwithstanding,
peace is here for the finding, each and every step,
each and every beating, beating, beating on of the heart,
each rattle of the grates on the sidewalk with the subways beneath,
each glance of sky between skyscrapers at dusted blue
and clouds like daydreams,
floating through the consciousness of a great world.
I write this, and the waiter-
one of seven billion thoughtful sons and daughters of God,
a son of this same reality-
sees me filling up the white space in blue ink,
and puts another napkin beside me
without my even having to ask.
People are thoughtful,
people can read each other.
Amid the tiredness, bustle, fevers, hunger,
and lust rattling our grates like subways on schedule,
we are the quiet gesture, the warm glance,
the ignorance and not noticing,
the excessive dwelling on
and the too-swift passing on
of the God that is in us,
and remembers this, and forgets this,
over and over again.
Whitman of New York!
Ginsberg in the fruit aisle of a supermarket!
Okakura of green tea!
I remember to eat my fruit salad
and drink this tea,
and as I do so,
I forget my anxiety.
Still tired,
still knowing a friend is probably dead,
still waiting for a call from another friend in Brooklyn,
still hoping I don’t catch a fever,
still hearing lust rattling the grates.
But I feel less hungry and closer to reality,
to goodness right here,
and I glimpse the everyday God,
the every moment God.

September 20, 2014