Long-lost friend, where have you been?
Down to the valley to find my gown.
What valley? Brooklyn has no hills!
It does, when it lifts and lets down souls.
What kind of gown? Please fill me in!
The kind you marry, not marry in.
Marry a dress? The frills your groom?
No frills, just cloth from a chanting loom.
A prayer? Close. A rhythmic walk
with verse all the way to a broken park.
Crumbling leaves pardon the bench;
beetles plunder the rotten branch.
I said a rhyme and let it swing
as the breeze incanted each dying thing.
I gasped at the goodness not my own,
and the sun, too soon, ran under a stone.