When a young man in shorts
sat down at the piano marked
Here for you to play
and played Chopin
impromptu en plein air,
the chords he made mailed
me back in time
up into air’s space—
the leaves of the trees
above me aflutter
like the young man’s hands
full of affection
of the kind my dog was taking
from a couple close by
while I sipped from a cup
listening and gazing
in my favorite stunned
time-stopped state
lapping the moment up
the way the dog was the couple’s kindness.
(Dag Hammarskjold Park, New York City)
Joan Lauri Poole can often be found walking on Manhattan’s East Side with a black miniature poodle. Born and raised in New York City, she comes from a family of art, music, and book lovers. She worked for many years as an editor and writer in book publishing. Generous selections of Poole’s poems have appeared in the anthology This Full Green Hour and at ducts.org. With one book of poetry (Bed of Crimson Joy) to her name, Poole is at work on a second. She lives most of the year in the city but in the warmer months escapes to a rental cabin in the Northern Catskills, where she spends glorious hours tending an ever-expanding makeshift garden.
