There is a heart in New York

There is a heart in New York,

not merely on t-shirts sold on sidewalks

but in the blues licks you hear from porters,

lining the gangway, cooing a history to wanderers.

When little can be said, 

there will be much shown

And welcome is a state of mind

That Harlem bus stops reverberate with.

The blind hear the visitor in the voice

as the spur of laughter unfolds,

the warmth of a map- 

that confronts the uncertainty 

of a nation on the cusp, of a visionless choice.

We witness the rain,

huddled in that shelter

As lovers diffuse the strangeness

With an embrace, which sways buses

Away from the puddles by the sidewalk,

And a few strangers will now smile 

on their journey downtown.

A passenger notices foreignness 

and wipes the mist off

Signs on the window pane 

clarifying the etiquette of seating

As a ramp rolls down 

for wheelchairs coming aboard.

The Halloween parade has assembled

And Greenwich village, 6th Avenue is,

floating with ghosts that sing and laugh!

The demon nun from the second Conjuring 

bares his fangs at me, and I know 

Now! how - Hallows and Hollywood 

Come together.

Three blocks northeast 

is the school in exile

And I wonder how much.. 

May have been gained if,

Walter Benjamin had found 

his way across the Atlantic

yet the Arcades Project was already safe

Consoled, I looked for a subway.

A restless curiosity is incurable

yet where pharmaceutical companies fail, 

the boxcar has won

A mingling of people, bodies, languages and love

The old re-assure the young

That this too, shall pass

But not before you learn how 

only a stranger can cradle your cares,

As she rests her face on a backpack in her arms.

- by Arsh Thursday, November 3rd 2016.