Of midtown blocks which oversee
The lustful sparrows and their lustful cries
Late April gathers up its dusty skirts
And shakes a sort of madness free.
It runs unhindered through the growing shoots
To one who thinks he loves and that it hurts,
Who shares the purpose of the swelling roots
And glibly stares at girls and flirts.
Some go out jogging to regain their trim,
Some gaze into the lake’s brown skin,Some feel a frenzy race from limb to limb
And put a finger on a treasured gun –
Still others with a book stay in.
Manhattan, fearful of the summer heat,
Propitiates with games the growing sun:
Frenzy and Spring are where the Furies meet
To pick off people one by one.
In Brooklyn Heights a kitten starts to call
And, ardent, screams across the night.A lonely student jumps to hear it bawl,
His text unread, his thoughts upon the blood
That goes on flowing out of sight.
What stirs the juicy tendon of a hand?
What old response to totems in the mud?
The intellect in trying to understand
Would climb beyond this if it could.
In Queens and in the Bronx the melting trash
Sings in the gutters to the day;No-one is hopeful, no-one over-brash,
Nor looks with equanimity upon
A madman who demands his say.
The urgent feelings of the latter Spring
Have turned upon themselves till what is done –
A knife wound or a brutal battering –
Seems like an offering to the sun.
The boy in Central Park on Venus’ Eve,
Hoping he loves but doubtful too,Shakes himself into trying to believe
That in the smoky, flame-filled evening air
A something vouchsafed to the few
Will swathe with light his gauche and anxious face,
Will modulate the marks of Eros there,
And teach him on this Eve to love with grace
Not tempt him with a stupid dare.
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© March 1981