Hickey's Creek January 3, 2019

album

Sanibel January 2, 2018

album

Six Mile Cypress Slough January 1, 2019

album

retrospective

At the end of the year images and stories in review

Recalling events before they disappear into history

The news of the day gets buried under the discard pile

The transient moments of our lives too easily forgotten.

At the end of the day became a cliche expression

So often heard beginning with the bottom line talk in the 1990s

When segui came into vogue to change the subject

As I listened to the spoken language adopt a phrase.

At the end of a life a convergence of themes

Interests those of us whose personal space is political

Seeking to align who we are and what we were

Living in the present with all that has happened before.

I have led many lives over the years moving through

Relationships and jobs and places each different

Commingled with fragments of childhood experiences

And those of my children some with their own children.

Reading a story about the last holdouts on the Bowery

Living in a last century skid row hotel throwback

I remember the people I knew who worked and lived there

When I made my stops every afternoon forty some years ago.

Delivering to the Palace to Leonard John Hughes the Elvis impersonator

Climbing up the wide stairs through the crack smoke crowd

Then downstairs to that self-important Hilly Crystal puffed up at CBGB

And next door to always sweet Kate Millet who came down to meet me.

Picking up restaurant supply shipments while talking to the workers

Arthur Eilets who couldn’t afford to retire from Stanton Trading

Dixie Adams and Antonio Gual doing life terms at Capitol Silver

Kenny Soohoo at Town so young and dreaming of escape.

Soon my thoughts drift along the nearby streets and avenues block by block

Seeing every building and sidewalk and hydrant as it was back then

Naming all the people I knew who lived and worked there then

Remembering our interactions when they were teaching me things

That I did not learn in school about class and prejudice

I think it is safe to speak of them now doing no harm

If any of them are alive it doesn’t matter anymore

Better that I should honor their memory with these words.

Looking at Google street view the neighborhood is transformed

Gentrified buildings erected and posh people strolling

No more bodega where I would get a pork bone for the family dog

Replaced by a trendy restaurant with dining al fresco.

I don’t know these new people who displaced my past

I can’t go back and ask the questions I would ask now

I see my people looking at me and into me as if from a photograph

Knowing what exists today will soon be our yesterday.