SeniorMusingsWritingJD037

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The End of Fall in Washington Square Park
By Nathaniel Goldberg

A poem about Washington Square Park in New York City. (Published in "Cat Bird Seat," an anthology of poems.)


The trees now naked and old pointing towards the universe like so many fingers, their dead leaves laying on the ground, golden bright. The junkies in Washington Square park have long since gone. Haunting music the only remembrance of times gone by when we were young and played our guitars sitting at the edge of the fountain singing folk songs, while the old men played chess with the kaleidoscopic colors of autumn paraded into the darkness, the old men now a memory. The only thing not changing was the archway. Here I grow older with each season watching the endless procession of mothers pushing their bundled infants in strollers past the fountain seemingly unaffected by the oncoming cold. The old men continue playing chess till darkness claims the final winner.