The tree branch at PS 6 - Susan Kohn Green

The Branch of the Tree at PS 6 

When I was in seventh grade - 

Oh My! was it sixty-four years ago ?   -  

We, the children of the whole school, 

Kindergarten through eighth, 

In procession,

Lines and lines of us, two by two,

Carried our very own books 

From the old PS 6,

The ancient grey stone building on 85th Street,

The three blocks down Madison Avenue 

To the brand new red brick one - 

The one with the courtyard for recess
And the doors painted red.

Oh, we were so important, entrusted with the books,

Heading for a future in a new place.

I passed PS 6  the other day

It is just the same, 

But - 

I do not remember that wild raspberry bush 
At the corner of 82nd Street;

Real berries, lush and rosy. peeping out at me -
Growing between the rungs of  the fence.  
Nor the flowers! 

Roses, hyacinths, calliopsis, morning glories, 

More -

Overgrown with each other;

All the hullabaloo of all that flora-

(Wild, like in The Secret Garden - 

My favorite book), 

Not the mosaic squares leading around a path,

And sculptures and fallen limbs woven together
To catch vine,.

Nor the bird house on the 81st Street side.

I would have remembered that - 

Watching sparrows flittering around the feeder.

But the old tree on Madison Avenue is still there. 

It arched one heavy branch over the sidewalk

All those years 

And yes, I just had time to paint that branch

Before someone thought, “Danger” and cut it off,

When was that? 

There is a fine grey callus where the branch once grew
From Mother Tree
Surreal in it’s sudden break -off point,
Smooth , a lopsided oval,

Like a giant scar, 
Where the rest of the tree is jagged with bark and 

Almost grotesque in it’s shape , it’s curves -

The Wizard of Oz could have used it as a character.

Yes,  the rest of the tree still stands as I remember it,

And for me, painting that heavy branch in spring,

The leaves just brilliant in their beginnings 
Is Immortalized in my memory.

For that is what painting does, 

Engraves it, stroke by stroke  in your brain

Pals 
 by    

Susan Kohn Green 

Yes, a duck and a turtle can be friends

Spending their time

On a flat little rock

Like their own private dock

Basking in the brilliant sun

In the halcyon phenomenon

Of

This particularly lovely day

In Central Park 

All in A Day :       Susan Kohn Green

From ;

The narrow grass-lined sidewalk in White Plains  

Where, today, my grand daughter had it to herself;

When her father took the training wheels off her bike.

For the first time he let go  and …

She peddled joyously down her sidewalk 

In the suburbs

And no one saw, no one knew, but us - 

Oh, perhaps a tree or two.

To;

Walk from the train across A Hundred and Twenty Fifth Street

Where women in African dress of turquoises and oranges

Or purple and brown, blues and whites

Wound around them to the ground - 

Matching scarves wrapped around their heads

Sat on chairs outside the door of 

The Holy Ghost Church

Or stood on the corners, hands on hips, 

Deep in conversations ,

Chatting in languages I do not know.

Men in t-shirts and blue jeans 

Or white dashiki, perhaps grey, 

In kulfi or skullcaps or long corn-row braids,  

dreadlocks or rastacap

Or flat twists or Mohawks or pony tails…

or crewcuts.

An old, thin woman bent nearly double 
Over her walker, jaywalking ,
Beating the light. - 

Children scampering, skipping, or

Or learning to walk, reaching out tiny hands

To pet my white, fluffy Jolie.

Women in floral or sequined  black hijab, 

An occasional abayas and burkha  -   

Or in blue jeans, pushing strollers,

The babies, grabbing at their toes.

Women in saffron or sky blue saris here and there-

Or in tight dresses ,

Revealing all,

With blue and green hair flowing.

Venders packing up the street wares of oils

Or jewelry or scarves 

Teens hooting and running..

A basketball bouncing..

Sirens, honking horns, 

Djembes’ rhythms drumming down the street

Laughter, whoops, running feet.

To

A quiet pale blue room                       

Darkened, but for pinpoints of flashlights

Focused on ancient Hebrew words

Silent and solemn people read,  

Some on chairs, some sitting on the floor, 

All bent over the text ,                           

Their fingers following the prayers on the pages

Quiet , but for one pure voice intoning the prayers 

for Tisha B’av.. 

A day of designated  sadness and despair

For the Destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans

Oh, two thousand years ago

Destroyed by the ravaging hoards of another religion

Another sect, Just another’s need for power….. 

But thought of as God’s revenge for misbehavior:

As an ancient  mosque in Mosul was destroyed just weeks ago

And Troy was destroyed  - what - three thousand years, now…_

A quiet reading in the dim blue room,

Pinpoints of light to mark 

A darkness in time.

To 

Walk our little white poodle

Under the moon in Central Park

Where the other dogs are running free , 

Chasing over the grass

And we, their people,  schmooze

And all is peace on the path with the moon

And the shadows of the trees

And the laughter

And the occasional bark.

I’ve walked worlds…

And all in a day

Raccoon  -   Susan K, Green    9/13 /17

When Jolie is ready ,

Tired of my schmoozing with the other humans,

She takes her delicate steps up the path ,

Stops to look back at me

As if to say, ‘Are you coming?

And I dutifully follow - sometimes.

Last night we left the cheery clique  

And headed up the path towards home -

In the dark night, the twin lights of the Elderado shining above us,

Glowing, through the silhouetted branches of the trees;

The moon,  a slipper; a coolish breeze forecasting fall,

Jolie’s little plastic bag of poop dangling from my hand.

Near the end of the path I say, “Leash”

And she stops to let me attach it… 

Then as we near the exit

I toss the bog of poop into the grey trash can .

It was a nice toss…

Dead center.

But - 

POW!  

Over the rim 

A raccoon surged up, roaring. 

Arms clawing at the air, head swerving. 

I had never heard a raccoon roar before - 

Oh, I had heard the squeals, the hisses -

(Once I thought it was a raccoon I heard

But when I turned the curve the path ,

No, it was the screech of a baby in a stroller)

But this one roared.

He reared up on the edge of the garbage can,

Looking for his attacker..

And then he saw me…

Ready for a fight, his clawed hands reaching.,

His eyes, glinting yellow, 

Glaring, staring at me. 

I stared back  

We eyed each other for quite a while…

I was mesmerized and he was waiting to see what I would do…

He was motionless, the yellow -eyed glint

Piercing the space between us.

I knew he was amazed, shocked, infuriated..  

Having had a bag of doggy poop land smack on his back      

While he was scrounging in the dark 

For some left over Pad Thai, hot dog or egg salad?

But I didn’t move, except to raise the camera

Once he retreated into the bushes, but then emerged again.

I still hadn’t moved. And Jolie didn’t care.

She had sat down, waiting for me, one more time.

He once more clambered up onto the rim 

Of the garbage can

And went back into the depths to hunt for his dinner.

Oh, as Jolie and I started home- again, 

I looked back one last time

He was hauling a huge white plastic bag out of the trash can .     

How would love to know what was in it. 

I Spied a Man Sketching

I Spied A Man Sketching  :  Susan Kohn Green

Yesterday, while walking the dog 

On our usual route in the park,

I spied a man sitting on a bench,

Sketching..

Of course, I had to see what he was doing,  so -

Very nonchalantly -  I strolled , with the dog,

Up onto the little rise of grass behind the bench and

Peered down.

He was using an Arches 300 lb hot press paper:

That in itself told me he knew what he was doing;

And yes, the drawing was full of

knowledge.

 I liked it a lot.

There was a figure of an alien nearly center, 

Colored in darkness: Crimsons, Prussian blues,

Surrounded by spiked trees, hidden grotesques,

Cruel faces hidden in the black lines, not yet colored,

Stark, full of menace;  vampirish skulls lurking.

What struck me was that he was using the trees I knew –

Intimately – as models;

A linden whose aroma sent perfume across the lawn in spring,

A cherry tree whose blossoms rang pink.

The gentle, green, rolling sunlit scene –

Using My trees to create  

A graphic nightmare forest of menace.

Now, is that what he actually saw:

Tree- spears growing thorns

Up and down their shafts;

An outgrowth of terror

That would tear flesh apart, unable to escape

The dense tangle of spikes? 

And gargoyles hidden in twisted vines

Or did he use the shapes of the pleasant trees as only a basis for Inspiration?

And build this forest of peril from his imagination?

I remembered the panic that I had, as a child,

As those Apple Trees in the Wizard of Oz

Stretched their limbs, 

Grabbing at Dorothy and the Scarecrow

As they made their way through the forest to Oz. 

There was terrible fear and the nightmares of those branches

That had become spindly arms and gnarled, bony fingers –

Skeletal -

Clutching the air

As they tried to capture the innocents.

And tree knots turned into grimaces, threatening with violence.

What do people realize in the ordinary, in the lovely, in the usual?  

What do people imagine them to be?

And why?