The Last Stand
( In lower Manhattan, along Houston Street, there is a 25 by 40 foot enclosure that is a “living monument to the forest that once blanketed Manhattan Island.” It is an authentic re-creation of the wild, inhabited for centuries by native tribes like the Lenni Lenape and the Canarsie, people who suffered forced re-location into areas far removed from their ancestral lands.)
Would anyone notice
the sudden extra glow
of the wild flowers
at the south end of the enclosure?
A passerby might muse
on the radiance
and find it to be
nothing more
than an effect of summer twilight.
but the tribal spirits
knew better.
The shining blossoms
poking through
the chain link fence
had channeled the Lenni Lenape
and Canarsie
fishermen and hunters
from the old Sapokanican
the sandy hills
known as Mannahatta.
The long red diaspora
was over now;
the birch trees
and hazel nut shrubs
knew it;
the white ash and elm
knew it;
the black cherry, witch hazel
and pokeweed knew it.
The tribes were home again
even in this tiny rectangle
surrounded by asphalt, tar
concrete and brick.
Any truck fumes
that strayed into
the enchanted space
and air
got absorbed
by primal fragrances;
any shard or scrap
of industrial waste
from the outside world
was quickly broken down
and restored
to its natural state.
Only a rare passerby
perhaps a gypsy
descendant of mojo women
or psychic sensitive
knew that the strange gleam
in the heart
of a morning glory
become moon flower
was more than just
the luminous touch
of gloaming.
Within this small stretch
of enclosed wild
this last stand
of a lost world
the grandfathers had returned.