I miss New York

I found this poem by Tomas San Diego on Textweek. I used to go to this church. I used to live in this neighborhood. It makes me wonder about this story. The paradox of a protest in light of what is about to happen in the story. The confusion of emotion. The charge of the city and the energy that it ignites.

Today, I miss New York.

1

On Palm Sunday in Holy Week
i ride the A train uptown to St. John the Divine
high art gothic looming over lowly Harlem
where liturgy is divinely rendered by a bishop
wearing a purple zucchetto
and pita bread replaces the wafer
falling crumbs to the cold
concrete floor of the grand cathedral
i stoop to pick up the pale fragments
of His broken body offered as sacrifice
of praise and thanksgiving for us careless
caretakers of the Holy Mystery

2

In Manhattan as hard rain falls at midnight
lady artist, Jesse, poet David Henderson
and i break bread and drink wine together
talking books, cinema, politics and personalities
like Cornel West selling out to Harvard's black elite
In ecstatic conversation we celebrate the word
made flesh on Sunday nite in Mekka on Avenue A