Unless

Unless… by Odin Roark Seems just yesterday the sun arced Over precarious ice The street’s one elm Leaned its naked branches with the wind Bringing winter’s announcement A Coney Island cat crouched puzzled Gradual crusting snow layering The boardwalk a ribbon of white awaiting the gray Mister Cat sprung back into dumpster heaven Closed his eyes And returned to his lone-bird dream The one always disappearing Over horizon’s edge A few blocks away Anxious hormones kept rebellious teens Of mere rip-torn jeans and NFL jerseys Rubbing their friction memories Into goose-bumped skin Frozen leaves scurried left and right Separated from their bark insulated origin The once virile tree sap Now but a cryonic life flow Awaiting spring’s resurrection Somewhere A corner-park’s snowman Bowed forgiveness to the stinging wind Its shivering cold prepared girth and pride For tomorrow’s collapse Beneath Time’s Square lights Heavy metal leapt from SUV windows Igniting crystal air Into a vortex of tribal dance sensations Vibrations warming all in its path Yesterday’s season-change Like a surprise party Thrown on a whim Roared through the city’s trenches Beneath skyscraper walls of protection As if birthing another Also Sprach Zarathustra Daring frozen tears to fall Central Park’s tree branches Clustered and embraced each other Like mouths searching for lips of warmth While a lone photographer Adorned in raccoon coat Pointed her camera at breathing drifts Becoming icing for fantasy’s deep freeze cake At city’s center Twisting cables of struggling semaphores Blinked for mercy As the insistent primal howl echoed Across pot holed roadways And iron slabs of street repair Above underground steel tracks Awaiting metro’s ignited contact As dawn broke Veined tunnels continued swallowing The rushing energy astride quickened steps Running feet Shoving elbows and shoulders City dweller anxiety Cascaded down entrance stairwells Boarded subway cars Merged into the city’s synaptic darkness And awaited their stop Most likely yet another insulated destination Where nature happening Might once again go unnoticed Never to be recalled Unless…