Manhattan, you were there. Family, friends, lovers, a husband, pets, apartments, and dreams have all fled like seasons, but you were there. You, more idea than land, never the less, were there like land. Your neighborhoods have stayed true to their shadows, the ghosts play on, ignoring buildings that mimic eternity but implode with shocking ease. So the Lower East Side and the East Village are still immigrant angry, their tenements thrown up as temporary shelters lurch in the dusk, cobbled and half-dead. The landmarked West Village stands invaded, like occupied Paris. Times Square cleans up but keeps its mad crossing roads. The Upper East Side, newly settled but as stifling as an Edith Wharton winter party, tries to resist the ghost of trees that sweep out street life. Central Park: homage, tableau vivant, a strange wood, strangely wild. The Upper West Side turns away from town, one big hostelry serving travelers who want to believe they’re home. Harlem the wellspring, a siren of lost treasure in the North, mourns its youth and warns us all like a low horn in a deep fog. Nothing changes, not the light, not the rivers, not the bedrock. Manhattan is the island that never forgets, a self-conscious island full of wind. New York, Manhattan, my Kali, my cruel host, my love, this rebuke is for you.
–Janet Capron
