Today I won't do a "Sunday funny." Instead, I'll share something that is lovely, or at least charming.
This house stands on King Steet in New Rochelle, near the Mercy College (formerly College of New Rochelle) campus. I pass it almost every time I ride home from Connecticut, as I did on Wednesday.
Lilacs on a lilac house. It's a visual respite from the gloom of pandemics and lockdown.
This semester, I've been teaching early morning classes. When the term began, I was pedaling in bright, often shadowless, pre-dawn light. But as the season deepened into fall, I was seeing sunset and, after Daylight Savings Time ended, I was getting to work just as the sun was rising.
All of that has meant seeing what people don't. You've seen some examples in some of my earlier posts. Some of the sights were just lovely; others had their own grittier kinds of poetry. This morning I saw an example of both:
Speaking of gritty poetry: As I took this photo--with my cell phone, on Randall's Island near the Bronx spur of the RFK/Triboro Bridge--some verses streamed through my mind:
La aurora de Nueva York gime
por las inmensas escaleras
buscando entre las aristas
nardos de anguista dibujada.
It's the second stanza of Federico Garcia Lorca's "La Aurora" ("The Dawn") and can be translated something like this:
The dawn in New York grieves
along immense stairways
seeking among the groins
spikenards of fine-drawn anguish.
Perhaps recalling those verses was a harbinger of what I would see as I descended the ramps on the Bronx side of the spur:
I've seen him before. Actually, I've never seen him: I've only seen the blanket and recognize the way he swaddles himself in it. Once, I got a glimpse of his face poking out of his bundle. I don't think he knows: He was still sleeping, as he was today.
Usually, he's in the corner, curled up as if he were in the womb, his first--and, perhaps, only--home. I had never seen him unfurled until this morning. And, even though he was less than a meter from his usual spot, it was startling to see him there. I can't blame him for moving there: It rained heavily a couple of hours after midnight, and spot is probably the driest place he could find outside of a building that wouldn't allow him in.
At least it wasn't difficult to see him. So, I was able to stop, dismount, lift my bike and tiptoe around him. I did not want to wake him, let alone rend one of the few shreds of dignity he has left.
Unfortunately, he's far from the only homeless person I see during my commutes. He's just the one I've seen most often, I think.
During yesterday's ride, I stopped at the site of the Mala Compra plantation. The name means "bad bargain" in Spanish.
As you can imagine, the place was so named because it turned out not to be as suitable for agriculture as was hoped. However, there are some strange and interesting sights, including this:
At first, I thought it might be one of those "only in Florida" species. But a second look reveals otherwise:
They are actually two different trees, one dancing around the other:
It seems that the curvy, languorous one wants to be closer to the upright citizen:
What is it like to be locked in a dance for centuries?
Yesterday I gave you three images and a lot of words on a subject (and a couple of topics) of interest mainly to cyclists.
Today I'm going to give you three images and fewer words. I don't know what the subject or topic is. All I know is that I captured them with my cell phone while riding home from work
Here's one from the Pulaski Bridge"
The light is interesting and unusual (Can one be without the other?)for the end of a late-July day. Perhaps it is a foreshadowing...of what, I don't know.
My LeTour commuter-beater seems to blend right in:
A little later, camouflage would have been a bit more difficult:
That street is in--where else?--Williamsburg.
Yesterday's ice melted; I got out for a while. Though still cold for this time of year--and windy--it was a rather lovely day.
One thing I've noticed, though, is that everything seems to be budding and blooming later than it has in other years. I'm not complaining, though, especially after seeing this tree:
or this patch near it:
When you cycle in an urban area, you see more graffiti than the average person. More important, you see it at closer range than someone riding a bus or cab, or driving by.
Even while seeing so closely, you don't remember a lot of it. After all, so much of it, frankly, looks alike. But every once in a while you see "tags" that stand out for their use of color, artistry or simply their overall size. And, sometimes, you see a graffito that's a true work of art. I am fortunate in having lived, for years, not very far from Five Pointz--whose days are. lamentably, numbered.
But this piece--on the side of a Barrow Street building, just west of Hudson Street in Greenwich Village, is like no other I've seen:
It must have had to do with the fact that today was an absolutely perfect mid-spring day. Somehow I was feeling proud, if not invincible, the way I did when I rode in my youth. Of course, I can't ride as far or long or fast as I did in those days, but I was feeling pretty good and rather proud of myself. Perhaps it had something to do with seeing this
He just knew he looked good against that bridge and sky. Of course, it wasn't enough for him to make me notice that.
That bird simply knew the bridges spanned a river, but his wings spanned so much more. Well, that's what he seemed to believe, anyway.
Who am I to argue?
