Blessing II

Blessing II

It's May and it has rained – and Brooklyn's green.
I'm walking now, with grasses growing lush
On either side of walkway – and with trees
That stretch and soar and arch in foliage.

How tender is the green – of grass and trees,
With leaves fresh-washed by storm that thundered by.
As evening comes, the air is still, the streets
Are silent, till a car comes swooshing by.

How rarely, in the hustle of the city –
That Mammon's workers built, in which we live
And work at speed to feed His appetites –
How rarely are we blessed with moment's peace?

And so I'm filled with gratitude for this,
This grace that gives me pause to breathe at ease...
How many more have sensed this evening's calm,
And so give thanks for blessing of release?

2013 May 11th, Sat., Brooklyn, New York
– at  the park I just found between 66th & 67th Streets
and between 8th Avenue & Fort Hamilton Parkway.

******
 

This park is part of a long, narrow stretch of green, cut

through by some of the Avenues that run roughly north-

south. The stretch starts between 4th and 5th Avenues and

runs south-eastwards to F. H. Pkwy. I believe this strip is

called Leif Ericson Park, at least at the northwestern end.

I lived right by that end for a year, at 66th Street and 4th

Avenue, when I first started working and living in Brooklyn

in 1987. It has taken me 26 years to discover the south-eastern

end.

Leif Ericson (Leiv Eriksson) was the leader of a Norse

expedition to North America. He allegedly landed on this

continent many hundreds of years before the Italian Christoforo

Colombo, financed by the Spanish Queen, reached the islands

of the Caribbean, with his crew of southern Europeans and possibly

Moors.

The area where Leif Ericson's statue now stands – and where his

park commences -- was once populated by Scandinavian and Dutch

immigrants, some of whose descendants are still to be found in the

area known as Bay Ridge at Brooklyn's southwestern tip.