February Evening in New York, poem by Denise Levertov

FEBRUARY EVENING IN NEW YORK
by Denise Levertov

As the stores close, a winter light
    opens air to iris blue,
    glint of frost through the smoke
    grains of mica, salt of the sidewalk.
As the buildings close, released autonomous   
    feet pattern the streets
    in hurry and stroll; balloon heads
    drift and dive above them; the bodies   
    aren’t really there.
As the lights brighten, as the sky darkens,
    a woman with crooked heels says to another woman   
    while they step along at a fair pace,
    ”You know, I’m telling you, what I love best   
    is life. I love life! Even if I ever get
    to be old and wheezy—or limp! You know?   
    Limping along?—I’d still … “ Out of hearing.   
To the multiple disordered tones
    of gears changing, a dance
    to the compass points, out, four-way river.   
    Prospect of sky
    wedged into avenues, left at the ends of streets,   
    west sky, east sky: more life tonight! A range   
    of open time at winter’s outskirts.

“February Evening in New York” appears in Denise Levertov‘s Collected Earlier Poems 1940-1960 (W.W. Norton, 1979) available at Amazon.com.

Photo: “Chelsea, New York City” by Ludovic Betron, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

February Evening in New York, Poem by Denise Levertov

FEBRUARY EVENING IN NEW YORK

by Denise Levertov

As the stores close, a winter light

    opens air to iris blue,

    glint of frost through the smoke

    grains of mica, salt of the sidewalk.

As the buildings close, released autonomous   

    feet pattern the streets

    in hurry and stroll; balloon heads

    drift and dive above them; the bodies   

    aren’t really there.

As the lights brighten, as the sky darkens,

    a woman with crooked heels says to another woman   

    while they step along at a fair pace,

    “You know, I’m telling you, what I love best   

    is life. I love life! Even if I ever get

    to be old and wheezy—or limp! You know?   

    Limping along?—I’d still … ” Out of hearing.   

To the multiple disordered tones

    of gears changing, a dance

    to the compass points, out, four-way river.   

    Prospect of sky

    wedged into avenues, left at the ends of streets,   

    west sky, east sky: more life tonight! A range   

    of open time at winter’s outskirts.

“February Evening in New York” from Collected Earlier Poems 1940-1960. Copyright © 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1979 by Denise Levertov, available at Amazon.com.

Photo: “Chelsea, New York City” by Ludovic Betron, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Blue Hour Monologue by David Mamet and Painting by Georgia O’Keeffe

THE BLUE HOUR:

CITY SKETCHES (Excerpt)

Monologue by David Mamet

MAN: In great American cities at l’heure bleue, airborne dust particles cause buildings to appear lightly outlined in black. The people hurry home. They take a taxi or they walk or crush into the elevated trains or subways; or they go into the library where it is open and sit down and read a magazine and wait a bit so that the crush of travelers will dissipate.

This is the Blue Hour.

The sky is blue and people feel blue.

When they look up they will see a light or “powder” blue is in the Western sky where, meanwhile, in the East the sky is midnight blue; and this shade creeps up to the zenith and beyond, and changes powder blue to midnight and, eventually, to black, whereat the buildings lose their outlines and become as stageflats in the glow of incandescent lamps. This is the Blue Hour—the American twilight as it falls today in the cities.

Painting: “New York Street with Moon” by Georgia O’Keeffe (1925)