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She Is Walking Across the Manhattan Skyline
She looks beyond the landscape of buildings towards the icy sea. If she could move, she would brush away the tourists who are in her dress like ants. But her heart is on greater things, with thoughts as vast as the Atlantic Ocean, set in folds and swirls of copper green. I learn from her like I would a mother. The Statue of Liberty is living. She moves off between the trees, a northern winter goddess, consumed by the weight of her thoughts. I like to watch her from behind. So I can see what she looks out upon, as if we are going somewhere. She is a cold and gracious mother, walking away in heavy green sandals, dressed in robes of stone. She is weathered oxidised green, a matron of copper. A non-maternal monument, more atmosphere than presence. 'Mother?' I call out into space. Her blind gaze graces the sky. The sunlight lands on her large green cheek, like seagulls creaking their wings of ice. Dawn rises along the horizon of her forehead. All mothers are universes, deep and cold. We are walking off into an ocean or a forest. We are entering a place so deeply wooded, that she will vanish amongst the branches, leaving only a trace of her green. The folds in her cold stone dress, will cover me like hoarfrost. She will leave the same green tongue the winter sky leaves as it starves for sun. She is stuck to a stone floor, but has her broad green back turned on the city, as if she is always leaving it, or on the verge of magnificent. New York City is polluted and boisterous behind her. She brings down thunderclouds into her sleeve. The weather is her only child. She is walking across the Manhattan skyline. |
