"THE COOK OF HOURS"

Stuyvesant Cove, located a block south from my building, is a pier-side park (rather small) but with an ecological significance. The plants are all native there, and delicate conservation is observed, especially critical to do so for a city like New York. One variety of plant (the milkweed) makes the park a way station for the migrating monarch butterfly, and I imagine from a sky view she sees the East River as a landing sign, and the upwind an agent to her home flower. The summers I am not in my kitchen, I am out on long walks along the water and around this park - and when I say "long" it means sitting under one of its trees to pass time and observing what birds may come; but mostly I let my mind's eye out to sea and think beyond the hours. And just like the butterfly finding my direction, I imagine Rilke: Sit out, write long letters, and then perambulate in the park when the leaves downrain. This morning a turtle dove landed and didn't mind me being there for this season's fruits and seeds in the path. A common sparrow landed on the fencepost across from the rock where I was sitting, and for a second looked me in the eye. At the pier, three finishing lines have been cast. And then all of a sudden I thought of spruce mountains - Acadia National Park in Maine, to be exact - and I don't know why. (It must be a recycling of old memories. And I remember now the nature and seascape paintings of Mardsen Hartley I saw at the Met a few months back, and, yes, he was from Maine. Of course.) And then it started to rain. But I didn't leave the park. Rain is like the complexion of my thoughts... There's still no fish in the line. The cormorant is too deep wading in the river (I always wondered that). And I followed her bobbing over the waves all the way to Brooklyn isle, keeping an eye on its head sticking out. And then she suddenly rose for her wings, in the far light...