Walt Whitman was a ******.

That's what we say when we cross his bridge
from South Philly to Jersey
and see what he would see:

the river solid waveless with trees green around
feeding from the water on the left and far beyond
the watertable real for a minute from the arched metal
and the city visible wholly with warehouses rowhomes
inches apart and glass buildings and all burnt orange
by four o'clock sun but clear on blue sky

but you know he was a ******?

and the city all one in your eye if you want it to be
and the languages together between the buildings

all the blacks asians whites itlalians irish polish
moving together and talking and eating the food
working and riding cars and buses around
the liberty bell and independence hall

it is brooklyn ferry it was his prophesy

but you know he was ******?
a big jersey boy *** yea

Ice arcs through the air
like solid lightning.
The large bolts strike with a rumble
and clatter to rest
where they gleam with bravado
at the dispirited winter sun.
The small bolts explode
with a skittering hiss
and trickle down between the bricks,
prodigal drops returning to the watertable.
Cast out from its plastic host,
the ice bears grooved testimony to their symbiosis,
but this testimony concedes to the crafting thaw
a bevel smoother than a human hand could fashion.
Some ice lies clustered on the brick paving
like terra incognita wrought on a vellum map
by the feverish imagination of an Olde World explorer.
Some lies scattered among the purple and white alyssum
in imitation of a Tyrolean spring.
As a breeze releases
the olfactory history of myriad fridge dwellers,
a cloth rings over a wire tray
in a crude arpeggio which segues into
the basso profundo of the resurrection hum.
The cycle begins anew.