New YorK

No big city skyline as we flew into JFK; 
Ripping cloud and saltmarsh as the wheels skimmed water.

In the sky, passing Faroe, Iceland, Greenland, Labrador
Tracking mind’s progress on in-flight monitor

I foresee a flag blue sky, that visual metaphor for 
All Things American.  The blurring cloud

Allows my frail landing – unremarked, unnoticed, backstage;
I halter at the thought and brace my Will

For America’s first air, the breath I seek and fear.
Kennedy’s legacy here and now; a burly guy in

Cats with his icon M.  Now driving through Queen’s
Over the arcing bridge of rivets and grace;

The fire that lighted Hart’s word, linking sorrow
Fear, his displaced hopes.  I salute you now Brooklyn Bridge.

Under this crust of concrete lies schist, gneiss; rivers find
Their original course, unimpeded.  As if America were a 

Current of temporality, whispering, irresolute
Here and now, but uncertain.  A river of steel

Flows through trees of Adirondack and Seneca
Familiar and new, old yet misunderstood.

I blink, seeking patterns beyond and below my
River.  This current carrying me on, unseeing.

Stars against a dark night sky, lighting blood and snow;
An old God’s vengeful hand utters forth as

Tattered banners proclaim: ‘These Colors Don’t Run’; 
‘God Bless America’.  I am steeled and stilled by

These oaths.  A New World vision through Old World
Eyes; familiar, odd, the same and forever far.

This river carries me through my own time, parallel
And apart from countless souls whose lives
Remain ever dark. Deer cannot cross and eagles wheel, silent
Over ponds, kills and lakes.  A river forever finds it way to

The sea.  Here, crossed and re-crossed those I feel and never see.
Distant land feels closer; I wear this sky now like a grey cloak.

Through a green tunnel shapes move, merge and fade;  
Shield and barrier, my love, wheeling through this

Light, this spray of life, this accented shift, this 
Collage of instant image and death.  America, nemesis;

A green and fecund place.  Appearing now, as giver
Then, crueller.  Wounded, suffering we plead for 

Grace.  Liberty shines dimmer now.  A frail and delicate
hand, needed; a gesture heeded, lesser and less.

Giles H. Sutherland

October, 15 2002

Note: A kill is a body of water, most commonly a creek, but also a tidal inlet, river, strait, or arm of the sea. The term is derived from the Middle Dutch kille (kil in modern Dutch), meaning "riverbed" or "water channel".[1] It is found in areas of Dutch influence in the Netherlands' former North American colony of New Netherland, primarily the Hudson and Delaware Valleys. [Source: Wikipedia]