In the shadow
Of the grey giant
Ellis Island
Find the arm that
Extends over the slender path
The Narrows
In summer
You’ll often hear a whirring sound
The Staten Island Ferry
Cars abound
Ferry Terminal parking lot
Although the sign
Nearby
Speaks of Indies native
The natives still speak
Of him of Hard word in 3 Vols.
Indies native is Alexander Hamilton and Sir Walter Scott said that “Gurnal” was a hard word to spell.
Hamilton Ave and Wall St. run parallel on this side of Staten Island (Wall St. is Walter Scott)
Take twice as many east steps as the hour
Or more
From the middle of one branch
Of the v
22 steps or more from one branch of the terminal ferry viaduct. You can see all of the branching ramps.
Look down
And see simple roots
In rhapsodic man’s soil
Looking down from the viaduct we see simple “routes” (homophone) i.e. train tracks.
We have a quote here that from Leonard Bernstein about Gershwin. This does two things. It links Gershwin to “tracks” and describes the soil. “Bern” in Bernstein is “amber” in German. Tracks in amber soil.
Gershwin’s tragedy was not that he failed to cross the tracks, but rather that he did, and once there in his new habitat, was deprived of the chance to plunge his roots firmly into the new soil.Leonard Bernstein
Or gaze north
Toward the isle of B.
Gaze north toward bus aisle (homophone) B or Bedloe’s Island. i.e Liberty Island
The last piece, is the interpretation of the image. This is basically to be read “Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind”. From Nathaniel Hawthorne. The seagull and clock are flying over the Statue of Liberty which is the U.S. We use the U.S. as “us”. The tiled panes are from Ishihara color blind tests. So we are supposed to read them based on their colors and the content of the panes. I am actually colorblind but I had help with this. We take the first letter of each word to construct the quote.
The NYC casque is buried below a hawthorne tree in this cove of the Staten Island Ferry Terminal Viaduct.
