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JUST FLOW ON
Take him Lordly Hudson, take him from the place his parents once
lived and where his daughter many times did play, the very place
Indians prophetically named Croton or "Wild Wind," which
he surely was, so take him, carry him down past the Tappan
Zee to the city of his birth, to the metropolis he loved, past
the Bronx, his 'hood, Van Cortlandt Park, the schools and
playgrounds of his youth, past the Concourse with its Woolworth lunch
counter picket line of memories, past Harlem and the rent strikes
he came to know, and close to the Central Park Be-In crazy time
happenings he did partake of, then down to 23rd St.’s piers, blocks from the Chelsea loft he called home (Just disregard those furious gridlocked honking cabs he once so ably commandeered!), then south to the Village with its teenage adventure-paved
pathways of temptation, and out to the Statue of Liberty, still steadily gazing seaward after welcoming our grandparents’ tired ships a century ago, oh flow
on, flow on under this long silver ribbon, let the magical estuary carry you back
at night, back and forth, in familiar rhythms of constant motion, you man of many Movements, as impossible to stop as the river water now running
through our hands, a restless spirit no sane grave would even attempt to contain, so
take him Lordly Hudson, take him,
take him and flow on.
March 2016