Unless…
by Odin Roark

Seems just yesterday the sun arced
Over precarious ice
The street’s one elm
Leaned its naked branches with the wind Bringing winter’s announcement

A Coney Island cat crouched puzzled
Gradual crusting snow layering
The boardwalk a ribbon of white awaiting the gray
Mister Cat sprung back into dumpster heaven
Closed his eyes
And returned to his lone-bird dream
The one always disappearing
Over horizon’s edge

A few blocks away
Anxious hormones kept rebellious teens
Of mere rip-torn jeans and NFL jerseys
Rubbing their friction memories
Into goose-bumped skin

Frozen leaves scurried left and right
Separated from their bark insulated origin
The once virile tree sap
Now but a cryonic life flow
Awaiting spring’s resurrection

Somewhere
A corner-park’s snowman
Bowed forgiveness to the stinging wind
Its shivering cold prepared girth and pride
For tomorrow’s collapse

Beneath Time’s Square lights
Heavy metal leapt from SUV windows
Igniting crystal air
Into a vortex of tribal dance sensations
Vibrations warming all in its path

Yesterday’s season-change
Like a surprise party
Thrown on a whim
Roared through the city’s trenches
Beneath skyscraper walls of protection
As if birthing another Also Sprach Zarathustra
Daring frozen tears to fall

Central Park’s tree branches
Clustered and embraced each other
Like mouths searching for lips of warmth
While a lone photographer
Adorned in raccoon coat
Pointed her camera at breathing drifts
Becoming icing for fantasy’s deep freeze cake

At city’s center
Twisting cables of struggling semaphores
Blinked for mercy
As the insistent primal howl echoed
Across pot holed roadways
And iron slabs of street repair
Above underground steel tracks
Awaiting metro’s ignited contact

As dawn broke

Veined tunnels continued swallowing
The rushing energy astride quickened steps
Running feet
Shoving elbows and shoulders

City dweller anxiety
Cascaded down entrance stairwells
Boarded subway cars
Merged into the city’s synaptic darkness
And awaited their stop
Most likely yet another insulated destination
Where nature happening
Might once again go unnoticed
Never to be recalled
Unless…