vino
Originally uploaded by ata08
i spent the day (full of meetings) looking forward to the night (full of merriment!) ---a drink to celebrate the birthday of a former co-worker and friend. a few of us took the subway to canal street, and walked west, to church lounge at the tribeca grand.
for as long as i've lived here, i've held an affinity for that little stretch of city, where tribeca becomes soho.
and when i am there, it is 1991, and '92,' 93, '94...and i'm walking home from my job at the da's office. sometimes wiping tears, overwhelmed by life and love and loss and lost love... sometimes huddled desperately against the wall of a brick building, with winter winds kicking around me, trying, failing, trying again and again to light the cigarette that i feel i need more than anything in that precise moment to keep my sanity...sometimes giddy and skipping...sometimes, like a real grown-up, new york gal...but always, i think--i know--always quietly amazed and aware of how lucky i was that "this" was part of my daily life. "this" being that simple act of walking home, on that particular route (west on franklin st, north on church, past canal, north on west broadway...then north and west--many different ways--to jane and hudson...) ...the walk offered clarity and inspiration and peace (yes, even the canal street part!)...the neighborhoods, the buildings, the streets felt historic but full of art, and promise...
all that i miss.
i missed it more acutely today, and was even more nostalgic tonight, perhaps because of the hour...
but nostalgia did not overwhelm the current joy of my every day life--my friends. i work with some dear, dear people. and i was happy to be in that "old neighborhood" of mine, with them.
(though the argentinean malbec i had there? rather terrible....ah, well.)
here's tonight's poem:
"Vino Tinto," in Loose Woman.
by Sandra Cisneros.
Dark wine reminds me of you.
The burgundies and cabernets.
The tang and thrum and hiss
that spiral like Egyptian silk,
blood bit from a lip, black
smoke from a cigarette.
Nights that swell like cork.
This night. A thousand.
Under a single lamplight.
In public or alone.
Very late or very early.
When I write my poems.
Something of you still taut
still tugs still pulls,
a rope that trembled
hummed between us.
Hummed, love, didn't it.
Love, how it hummed.
