A Catalpa Tree On West Twelfth Street poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry

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?