New York Trilogy: Au Revoir Empire State

So...Every so often, I enjoy writing a poem, especially for a special occasion. Here are 3 I penned to say good-bye to New York City, graduate school, and Long Island, in that order.
--UK

NEW YORK TRILOGY

Leaving New York:

New York,

I have been leaving you since I arrived

Don’t take it personally,

but now I’m really going.

No more afternoons in the park

Evenings in the Village

Midnight taxi rides

or museum expeditions.

We had a good run

we even tried a commuter relationship.

It’s time to admit

we weren’t right for each other

we come from different worlds.

It’s not you, it’s me.

Or maybe it’s you.

Dirty, unrelenting, expensive

with a smelly underbelly.

Offering hope

Only to snatch it away.

I just can’t do this anymore.

I hope we can still be friends.

Notes Accumulated Over Time (Graduate School Year by Year)

Prelude: Letter of Acceptance

Thank god!

Someone wants me after all.

I’m going to be an Academic!

I’m going to live on books and

Important Conversations!

They are paying me to be a

SCHOLAR.

1^st year:

Pleasure & pain intertwine

Combine

Easy camaraderie

Important Conversations

Beer & blowhards

Inevitable housing issues

Inevitable Foucault

So grateful to be here.

2^nd year:

Classes?

I’m so over them

I’m ready for the next thing

next year

next challenge

next next next please!

That damned Foucault is still following me

I had to take out loans;

What they pay is a pittance

At least teaching is less boring

than TAing.

3^rd year:

Shouldn’t reading all day long

be more fun than this?

I’ve developed a permanent twitch in my hand

from typing notes

Exams

What a mess

Then: So…what’s your dissertation going to be about?

4^th year:

Indecision

Derision

Research more:

Confusion

From out the miasma

an Idea emerges

Careful, they say: you’ll have to live with this one for the next ten years.

Write a proposal:

Immediately trash it.

Start the first chapter.

Move on.

Interlude: Summer work study

What am I doing?

How many hours?

How do I log them?

When do I find the time for my work?

Whose idea was this anyway?

5^th year:

A recipe:

Research

Write

Repeat

First years don’t know who you are.

They look so little.

And hopeful.

6^th year:

Edit.

Edit edit edit

edit edit edit edit

Frantically apply for jobs

Set the date.

Edit edit edit edit

Defense: Speak. Answer questions.

This is it?

Congratulations! You’re a doctor.

I’m a what?

Aren’t you so relieved?

I need a job

The Long Good-bye

Long and blue and green

Sprinkled with turquoise

pools and long

ribbons of congested highway.

seen from above

a lobster claw

a whale

The first thing I noticed

were the trees

canopied above

bursting flowers

water blue sky

beach access

quiet neighborhoods

--the opposite of Brooklyn

upon closer inspection—

there are no sidewalks

food and gas and heat

and housing and everything

costs. so. much.

summer traffic is murder:

2 hours in the car

to go to the Hamptons—

it’s just stores.

outsiders don’t live here;

we merely survive.

How will I remember it?

This place with

good pizza

ocean breezes

views of Connecticut

hazy in the distance

ferry boats

wine country

hiking flat forest trails

taking the train to the City

News Channel 12:

As local as local news gets.

Perhaps

I look forward

to friendly locals

People who smile at you

for no reason.

Who say “please” and “thank you”

I look forward

to non-aggression

But I will miss the blue

And I will miss all of you

Farewell little island

that is not so little

for it is Long.

Farewell the

drawers

dogs

coffee

and chocolate

I stayed for a while

Longer than I expected

now I’m longing to leave;

I’m leaving you.

Good bye.

On the Beach

I went down to our beach today. The weather was so beautiful, I couldn't resist. It was low tide, so I went down for a short walk with my camera.

The view of our beach from the top of the stairs, street-level.

The last time I was down there was on Easter. I took all our Easter guests down there to walk off our Easter ham and other goodies. It was a beautiful day then too. Today, like on that day, it was low tide.

Our beach is not a very big one and constantly subject to erosion. I have the feeling that our property owner's association fee for using the beach in the summer (quite steep--but I find it hard not to cave in and scrape up the dough when the beach in question is 100 yards from my front door) entails adding sand to the beach in time for summer beach-going.

Low tide.

Today the beach seemed very small, even at low tide. The two yards of beach leading up to the water were completely paved with stones and various other oceanic debris. Because we are on the Long Island Sound side of the island (north shore as opposed to south shore), the water is like the water in a bay: very calm and flat. There are rarely any waves. Today's were minuscule.

As a consequence, in addition to the many-colored stones, perfectly polished from rolling in the deep, sharp-edged shells, and sea-weed that peppered the shoreline, it was also easy to distinguish a variety of other Sound debris. Namely, concrete blocks, bricks, often still mortared together, as well as bizarre rusted metal tubes, pipes, and junk of ambiguous origin. One time there was a whole metal door of some sort that had washed ashore.

Asphalt square; concrete block, and some bricks at the far right.

Today's findings were a little less startling, though just as rusted and strange.

No idea what this is--a rudder that fell off a boat? A piece of boat? 

This looks almost like one of those early headpieces for underwater suits. Creepy.

Where does this stuff come from? Both disgusting and fascinating, I can help wondering not just where these things come from, but how long it takes them to become so rusted, and how they came to be tumbling over the ocean floor. Granted, the south shore of Connecticut is quite industrial, with many shipping ports. Nearby New York is no better. Things just fall off, apparently, and are dashed about by the currents until they are spit back out into our sand.

Stuck in the sand. No idea what this is.

By the time these remnants of civilization end up on our shore, they are utterly changed from their former selves, studded with rocks, coated in seaweed, broken and battered.

(Makes me think I should get my tetanus shot renewed. And that I could make a calendar with pictures of bizarre Long Island debris and sell it on Etsy.)

Of course, I hate this industrial litter. It's vile. Disgusting. Poisonous. But it's also fascinating, and maybe a little inspiring. They could be remnants of a lost underwater civilization. A litterbug Atlantis. They could be space trash that has fallen into the ocean and washed up on our shores. Maybe these elements rust so quickly because they are made of Terbinium and thus only adapted to the atmosphere of Mars.

Still, I do hope all that junk is gone by the time swimming weather arrives.

Huzzah for sunshine at 7pm!