A month ago today, on a long walk to the Brooklyn flea, I stumbled across the patch of sidewalk pictured in the second photo—and I started writing on my phone while walking. Somehow, suddenly it seemed, it was after 2pm and I was hungry, so I stopped, bought lunch, and kept writing, this time editing in my journal as I went. I’m a queen of first draft dumps and I enjoy editing less, but the time I took to wrestle with these words, well, it cemented the feeling.
All these photos are from that weekend (mostly from that walk) and these are the words I found inside me, this is the poem that found me:
I want a carve-it-in-the-sidewalk kind of love
Permanent and temporary
Concrete as long as we stay right here on 5th
Forever as long as we’re both in it
It’s pausing by the only ground that won’t hold us
(Is the uncertainty temporary or are we meant to last beyond this moment?
Will the unsteady solidify into trust?)
So with a stick like a wand, we turn that quicksand pavement
Into something that will remember us
It’s dropping my hand just to write my name
I know we don’t know next week or forever
But we’ve cemented today
Maybe sidewalks cradle more than hands dropped and words etched
Maybe every memory is a little like that
Permanent only where we carve them
Uncertain in the end
And a passerby cannot see a twist or bend
To that pavement passerby: you’re forever from where they stand
So sidewalks, photos, hands held on the train:
You’re only seeing a window
Never knowing what will last, what will fade
All we have are our concrete todays
