Up the lanes of liquid onyx Toward the high fire-laden altars Move the saints of Manhattan In endless pilgrimage to death, Amidst the asphodel and anemones of dawn. ASCENSION: AUTUMN DUSK IN CENTRAL PARK Featureless people glide with dim motion through a quivering blue silver; Boats merge with the bronze-gold welters about their keels. The trees float upward in gray and green flames. Clouds, swans, boats, trees, all gliding up a hillside After some gray old women who lift their gaunt forms From falling shrouds of leaves. Thin fingered twigs clutch darkly at nothing. Crackling skeletons shine. Along the smutted horizon of Fifth Avenue The hooded houses watch heavily With oily gold eyes. STARTLED FORESTS: HUDSON RIVER The thin hill pushes against the mist. Its fading defiance sounds in the umber and red of autumn leaves. Like a dead arm around a warm throat Is the sagging embrace of the river Laid grayly about the shore. The train passes. We emerge from a tunnel into a sky of thin blue morning glories Where yellow lily bells tinkle down. The paths run swiftly away under the lamp glow Like green and blue lizards Mottled with light. WINTER STREETS The stars, escaping, Evaporate in acrid mists. The houses, rearing themselves higher, Assemble among the clouds. Night blows through me. I am clear with its bitterness. I tinkle along brick canyons Like a crystal leaf. FEBRUARY SPRINGTIME The trees hold out pale gilded branches Stiff and high in the wind. On the lawns Patches of gray-lilac snow Melt in the hollows of the terraces. The park is an ocean of fawn-colored plush, Ridged and faded. Sharp and delicate, My shadow moves after me on the rumpled grass-- Grass like a pillow worn by a dear head. Joy! THE ASSUMPTION OF COLUMBINE The lights trickle grayly down from the hoary palisades And drip into the river. Leaden reflections flow into the water. Framed in your window, Your little face glows deceptively In a rigid ecstasy, As the wide-winged morning Folds back the mist. FROM BROOKLYN Along the shore A black net of branches Tangles the pulpy yellow lamps. The shell-colored sky is lustrous with the fading sun. Across the river Manhattan floats-- Dim gardens of fire-- And rushing invisible toward me through the fog, A hurricane of faces. SNOW DANCE Black brooms of trees sweep the sky clean; Sweep the house fronts, And leave them bleak in sleep. High up the empty moon Spills her vacuity. I dance. My long black shadow Weaves an invisible pattern of pain. The snow Is embroidered with my happiness. POTTER'S FIELD Golden petals, honey sweet, Crushed beneath fear-hastened feet... Silver paper lanterns glow and shudder in flat patterns On a gray eternal face Stained with pain. LIGHTS AT NIGHT