Glimpses I caught, between the swishing traffic,
on that wet sidewalk in cold rain and colder wind
and a bulky castoff Cleveland Browns windbreaker,
a man tottering a mime of an off-center
run-down grandfather clock, and oh yes,
in a dirty orange unrav'ling woolen cap
with flopping pom-pom. Ah, here's our wine.
Cheers.

  Then he left off tottering, caught himself
a sudden vision in the glass - that plate glass
there – and turned and froze as one struck,
arms spread, splayed fingers for balance,
gaping at himself and his wobbling pom-pom, and I too
caught him, uncannily beyond the CLOSED sign,
in the black glass among the white tablecloths;
you can't see them now. Another? Already?
Over here!

   And then, my god, then he started to dance.
Well... OK, more of a gaucherie than dancing:
shuffling, spread-legged tottering (he'd a clubfoot, I noticed)
but now without - this is the point - without
progressing as before (if progressing is the right word
for going nowhere) along the wet sidewalk.
For some minutes - or was it seconds? – he gaped
and danced while busy folk eddied 'round him,
then a rain-beaded bus of limp-faced, gray
successful tourist faces stopped right there
and I lost him, the pom-pom man, who danced among
the tables of the Café Boulevard. I think I'd like
a little more. You too?

   Well, it was for him, you see, a vision
– for me a far feebler thing: a philosophy –
grand as Milton, Dante, St. John the Divine,
oh, even St. Simeon at the Temple. The ecstasy
of an achieved leap ignores how high you rise
(pace Nijinsky, Nureyev, Barishnykov). It's how low
you started. á

01/23/2011

Posted on 01/23/2011
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