a vale of tears

this Vale of Cashmere
watercolored gold and maize and flat brown
like nineteen-seventy-two
paths all laid out in rails of fallen trees
those black bike messengers
lingering in the darkness
on a long red carpet of used rubbers
printed in half-moons and horseshoes
what a mighty, monolithic loneliness seems to spring up at dusk
echoing the hollow sneaker footfalls and owls
and the long lowing sounds
blowing from the zoo
all those men who linger in the dark
beside the fountains choked with rot and algae and leaves
beneath the willows and on the fringes
of Olmstead and Vaux's broad, elegant lawns
laid and seeded
drawn with rulers and blissful Christian good intentions
for daylight and small children
for safety and a place to go
on weekend mornings and weekday afternoons
and not for this silent pocket
of park where they are all standing
waiting or sitting blowing clouds of grassy smoke
waiting for someone to come along
though the membrane of sunlight at the edge of the grass
and pass into that inscrutable darkness
beyond the Vale of Cashmere