Madison Square Park in an elderly May where the dogwoods bloom and the London planes thrive. Where the Pagoda grows and the Black locust lives, where the warm colors of Cornelian Cherry dance on the ends of branches. From a bench, I watch the clashes, the natural ebbs, and natural flows. Some rays break through the crowns of the trees and cast a light upon the grass below. A grass greener in contrast to the avenue beyond the gate, beyond the unlit lampposts reaching the grime that coats the street. There’s a peace here, the sounds of the City are muffled, never completely silent and seldom are they still. The cacophony from the insects, the crooning house sparrow, the scurry of the squirrels and the pollen suspended in mid-air. The sound of nature is deafening, a leaf falls the kingdom knows it. Everything here has a purpose there is nothing out of place. Cumulus clouds cut out against a baffling blue the breeze moving slowly blowing softly through the people. They sit near and far some by the fountain or child’s playground. I have a place inside the kingdom, and I come here to remember. Madison Square where I divot the earth and lay my roots. I cover them with dirt and sprinkle water over the top I am planted on a bench peering through the locust trees. I’ve become a fixture of the park like the Crabapple or English elm. The spring is in her full swing and summer is on his way.
The base of the locust was vacant, the roots protruding from the dirt. The seat was seemingly made for her as she sits and reads her book. So fragile does she settle, crossing her legs, she hones in on a relaxed position; she could hold that pose for long. The crook of her neck follows sentences and paragraph indentations, her eyes jump from ellipses to ellipses, especially if reading Céline. Has she dived headfirst into the world of Marcel Proust? Is she gorging on the love stories of D.H. Lawrence or is she running the road with Kerouac? Something about a woman reading, something strikes me and strikes me quick. The stillness in her physiognomy and primordial urge to nest and make comfortable. The way she brushes away a fallen lock of hair so as not to disrupt her eye-line. The way she must use her entire palm to hold the book, the delicate nature of her hands.
She is pretty like a woman in a Volegov painting looking at the surroundings her head turned away in the moment before we lock eyes. She wears long dark hair, straight, ending at her lower back. Dark eyes and a café skin tone. Her eyes like black holes, eyes I could fall in, there is a lightness behind them though, they say so much yet stay so silent allowing the light to speak for itself. She wears a red dress with little white dots that falls like water, falling between the curvature of her legs and acts as a veil shielding her from the perils of nature. Her ankle strap sandals secured tight, integral to her function. She needs not for makeup or artificial concealer; she presents herself to nature as nature itself intended. To house her the Black locust stretches his branches just an inch further to adequately protect the creature at his base. A ray of light catches her face, and a golden sheen shines bright off her cheeks. She is more real than the air I breathe.
She has become a part of the tree, a part of the park in the same way I have. We are the same, but she outpaces my attempts to hold her. When she shifts, she shifts with a resplendent softness, the gaiety with which she moves. She is so pleasantly placed among the boxelder bugs and bees, the mantis, and the ant. She was made for nature and her existence is justified against the sky and the trees, the bark chips, and gravel pieces.
Amidst the foliage there is still a chaos all around us; it never ceases or seems to abide. Some argue, screaming into a telephone or gripe to a co-worker about some insignificant trifle. Others are pushing strollers, walking dogs, clutching shopping bags, or just passing through. In the buildings that surround us, the careerist slaves away. Clocking in or clocking out, attempting to satisfy an arbitrary array of amoral duties. In the chaotic commotion, our subject remains still. Lost inside a book or more fitting, finding her way through the twists and turns like operating a spindle pulling apart sentences, and forming new ideas. She may read from a book of Keats’ poems and take note of the ekphrasis in Ode on a Grecian Urn or maybe she is studying the traditions of Victorian art as she finds the postmodern pieces vapid and lacking in spirit. There is a peace she is creating, removing herself from the backbreaking demands of mundane modernity. She has made it to the only place that can fully appreciate her worth. The place where American hornbeam and Chinese elm live together in a choreographed dance of rocks and root systems. The place where the crookedness of trees says nothing of their strength. I haven’t taken my eyes off of this creature. I am far enough away to where I am not a nuisance or a bother just another human being planting roots inside this park. A woman reading demands her harmony leave all her stones untouched and unturned. I am prepared to stay here, exactly here in this location no change to the coordinates and no desire to uproot. For the moment I am content to watch her, to feast upon the tangible result of witnessing her candor, to gaze and wait, patient as every new movement was borne from her mind, unaltered, chosen in that moment.