A Catalpa Tree On West Twelfth Street by Amy Clampitt
While the sun stops, or seems to, to define a term for the indeterminable, the human aspect, here in the West Village, spindles to a mutilated dazzle—
niched shards of solitude embedded in these brownstone walkups such that the Hudson at the foot of Twelfth Street might be a thing that's done with mirrors: definition
by deracination—grunge, hip-hop, Chinese takeout, co-ops—while the globe's elixir caters, year by year, to the resurgence of this climbing tentpole, frilled and stippled
yet again with bloom to greet the solstice: What year was it it over- took the fire escape? The roof's its next objective. Will posterity (if there
is any)pause to regret such layerings of shade, their cadenced crests' trans- valuation of decay, the dust and perfume of an all too terminable process?
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