A Gate Opens

A GATE OPENS POEMS & PHOTOGRAPHS

ARTHUR ROBERT GOSHIN 1

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This world is a momentary glory.

I never thought it would last forever so I tried to get it down in one notebook or another, in one poem or another.

Somewhere you can find it.

from ‘A Momentary Glory’ by Harvey Shapiro

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NY BOTANICAL GARDEN

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Other Poetry by Arthur Robert Goshin: One Hundred and Twenty Four Moons Longing Before Dawn Love’s Cloth Both The Harvest And The Seed Time Changes Nothing The Strange Curiosity of Memory Always Searching for Me Keeper Of Memories

Front Cover Photograph: Central Park, NY Back Cover Photograph: Central Park, NY Book Design: Parkway Digital

Copyright © 2016 Arthur Robert Goshin

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NY BOTANICAL GARDEN

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ABOUT THIS BOOK THE PHOTOGRAPHS All of these photographs are reflections. Each one was taken from a reflection as seen on a distressed metal surface that I use. They are not computer created. I accidentally stumbled on this approach about a year ago. It has offered me the opportunity to create unique, poetic, visual, impressions of pieces beauty in the world that I encounter. It’s been great fun.

THE POEMS A friend of mine once described many of my poems as being like Fado music, a Portuguese music tradition. To me, the single word that would best describe it would be ‘mournful’. Although having a personality in counterpoint to this, I do find myself writing about many things from a perspective relevant to those of us who are beginning to see their end.

Of course, as always, there are ‘musings’ of mine on an array of topics, including a few that might make you smile or even laugh.

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This book is dedicated to my adored and much loved grandchildren.

Oskar, Eli, Maxine.

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THEY SHOULD HAVE WINGS They should have wings.

My grandchildren.

Because for me they are treasures, real angels.

Perhaps grandchildren are God’s messengers, His angels for grandparents, leading us to our ‘next’ place: ‘And now I am sending my angel to go before thee and guard the on the way and lead thee to the place I have made ready for thee’ (Exodus 23:20-21) They are perfectly created beings with the power to soothe our souls, to remind us that there is some higher continuing purpose and obligation to our lives, for us to help ensure that their world will be safe, filled with goodness, and that they will have lives overflowing with happiness and joy.

Oskar, Eli, Maxine.

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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GHOST RANCH, NM

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A HOLY OF HOLIES I thought it was the grandest temple.

Perhaps a holy place.

It was spectacular, breathtaking, the largest room I had ever seen.

The heavens were painted on the far above ceilings.

Shafts of golden morning light filtered in through high windows.

Although filled with people at the many tables, there was a hushed quiet, books being reverently held and studied as though they themselves were newly born wonders, reminding me of when the elders were in silent prayer reading their prayer books at my synagogue.

The Rose Reading Room at the main branch of the New York Public Library, 42nd and 5th.

I was six years old, and it was my first visit to a library.

My mother had taken me.

The moment was an imprint, that libraries, books, words, ideas, would be special, and would, thereafter, always be so for me.

Revered.

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LAS CONCHAS TRAIL, JEMEZ SPRINGS, NM

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FENTON LAKE, JEMEZ SPRINGS, NM

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RESURRECTION It’s late.

The platform is empty.

Still, quiet.

I’m waiting for the next train.

The journey home from Brooklyn, babysitting for my grandsons.

Finally it arrives.

My car is empty except for a homeless person, woman I think, huddled at the opposite end of the car.

She is covered completely in what appears to be two heavy dark coats, wearing well worn boots, a thick black wool hat, gloves, with a green plastic garbage bag by her side that undoubtedly contains all of her worldly possessions.

Gradually I begin to notice some back and forth movement under the layer of coats, as if she is awakening, stretching.

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It continues for a minute or so, appearing as though what is within is actually growing.

I’m mesmerized, fascinated.

Suddenly, the coat buttons can no longer contain what is within, and one by one pop off, rolling across the floor.

The coats open, start falling away, as a brilliant, blue, iridescent wing begins to unfold.

The coats, gloves, hat, boots, now fall quickly away as magnificent wings fully unfold revealing this most wondrous, beautiful, spectacular, butterfly of such huge proportions that it nearly fills the entire car.

The train arrives at its next stop, the doors open, and this incredible, newly resurrected being softly glides forward and out the door, gently, fully, unfurls its newly born wings, and heads out to meet the world.

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WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL, LOS ANGELES, CA

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WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL, LOS ANGELES, CA

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AN UNDISCOVERABLE ALIEN Although I had first sensed it was a dream, I am now certain that it was an actual memory.

It was dark, deep winter, the house quiet, middle of the night, somehow I sensed it was snowing, not unusual for Buffalo.

I got up feeling that there was something I needed to see, to know, and began to search through the house, first downstairs, then up.

Everything seemed to be in its place, as it should be.

Finally, I reached the unused room at the far end of the upstairs hall.

The curtains were open, and through the tall windows I could just see a full moon.

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I stood there looking down into the backyard.

The snow was falling so softly, gently, in large flakes, no wind, and then, there, amongst the trees, were three young deer, carefully, peacefully, searching for scraps of food.

I was overcome by the wonder, the surprise and unexpected beauty of the moment, a hidden observer, as though an undiscoverable alien coming upon a view of life out on the tundra, far away in place and time, before man appeared and began to despoil the earth.

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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DALE BALL TRAILHEAD, SANTA FE, NM

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LOVE IS NEVER SATISFIED Ah……a perfect night to cause mischief.

The sun is setting, late Spring, a slight breeze, pleasantly warm, Central Park, the fragrance of new flowers blooming.

‘It’ flits around, unseen, knowing that perhaps some actually sense that ‘it’ is nearby.

‘It’ looks around for likely targets, now feeling especially playful, after all ‘it’s’ there to provide some happiness, right?

Our little Love Spirit/Imp. ‘It’ knows that it’s just the right kind of night when they’re most susceptible to ‘its’ touch — ready to yield to desire, hope, open to new adventure, a new beginning, believing in the possibilities of love and romance, the kind in their dreams, the kind that may last forever, finally providing the joy they so crave.

But, our little Love Spirit/Imp knows better, knows what they all will come to learn eventually, that no matter what, love is never satisfied.

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STOLEN LIVES No. No child should be born to have to sleep in the streets, to sort through garbage for their food, to be scorned, beaten, ignored, never loved, to die far before their time without knowing moments of true happiness, to never have dreams fulfilled.

No. No child should have their life stolen.

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NY BOTANICAL GARDEN

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ASPENS, SANGRE DE CRISTO MOUNTAINS, NM

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ASPENS, SANGRE DE CRISTO MOUNTAINS, NM

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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A PURE WHITE LIGHT I stand at the edge, waiting.

Waiting for the day’s first moments.

A sweet, fresh mist comes rolling in, encasing me at the shore.

With the first light I begin my run and soon feel the long moist grass try to wrap around my legs.

I continue to savor the cool salty air, and watch the nearby terns dance to escape the incoming waves.

Deep, steady breaths create a relaxing rhythm, my mantra.

In this state my thoughts drift to you, surely asleep, still waiting there for me, radiating that pure white light there on your cloud of sheets and pillows, while the last of the moonlight mixes with the first of dawn enhancing your glow.

I quicken my pace realizing that the sooner I finish the sooner I can slip under the covers to enjoy your warmth and the rest of that morning.

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THE NATURE CONSERVANCY PRESERVE, SANTA FE, NM

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THE NATURE CONSERVANCY PRESERVE, SANTA FE, NM

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ENCOUNTER OF ANOTHER KIND I was going uptown, she downtown.

Opposite platforms.

Night.

We had arrived at about the same time, both having just missed our trains.

No one else on either platform.

Our eyes connected, she smiled, raised her hand and gave a brief wave.

I returned both.

She then glanced about to see if anyone else was around, unclipped her hair, let it down, and swirled her head side to side.

A few seconds passed, then another smile as she unbuttoned the top two buttons of her blouse, revealing a very generous cleavage.

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I motioned with my hands, reinforced by mouthing the word ‘more’.

Swaying in a slow rhythm she began to slowly raise her skirt bringing it to high up on her shapely thighs.

I smiled and applauded, she blew me a Marilyn Monroe-like kiss.

I heard her train approaching.

She motioned for me to wait there and smiled.

Her train arrived, but I saw her get on, come to the window opposite me, press her lips to the window for a last kiss, a smile, and a wave goodbye.

And then she was gone.

I stood there, alone, waiting for my train.

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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IN THE HEART Love.

It is assembled in the heart.

Gradually pieced together, little by little.

At first it hardly has any substance, perhaps just vapors really, like slices of wind being glued together by imagination.

Until it begins to take some form, accumulates substance, becomes tactile, recognized for what it is now becoming.

And then, if lucky, finds true reciprocity, bonds with its twin, blossoms, flowers, receives its needed nourishment, becomes fragrant, produces nectar, joy, happiness.

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RANCHOS DE TAOS, NM

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RANCHOS DE TAOS, NM

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LEFT BEHIND I have this recurring, vague, troubling sense that in a place of my childhood I have left something important behind.

Perhaps in a drawer, hidden behind a piece of furniture, tucked away in a toy, in one of the closets, or maybe in the pocket of a jacket.

And if found would trigger a special treasured memory, one that would provide an important link, a connection, from the before to now, giving me a sense of completion that I need as my time moves to an end.

Now, just where did I put it?

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SUNSET, JEMEZ MOUNTAINS, SANTA FE, NM

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NO SUIT, NO TIE, PLEASE Now, no suit, no tie, please.

Just wrap me in a shroud, or jeans and a sweater, so I can be comfortable, and sure, a simple pine coffin.

The tallis from my bar mitzvah that my grandma Minnie gave me placed over my shoulders once again.

Coffin closed so I can be by myself, not a view I wish to share.

At the service read a few of your favorite poems of mine(please include my ’For All This We Give Thanks’).

Tell a couple of funny remembered stories to keep it light.

Maybe play some early Dylan, like ‘Blowin’ In The Wind’, and then maybe the instrumental of the last two minutes from Led Zepplin’s ’Stairway to Heaven’.

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But, don’t make the whole thing too long.

And personal commentary from a rabbi only if he/she knew me.

Place me in Beth David, close to my parents, grandparents, and great grandmother.

After, a meal of blintzes, cheesecake from Ferrara’s, some black and whites, and of course, noodle kugel.

Know that I will be with all of mine from the before who are all gone, and we’ll be dancing and singing back in our village, waiting for you to join me, but please, please, take your time.

There will be moments when you may really, really wish I was there with you, know that I am.

Love, forever.

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SCULPTURE PARK(FORMER FRICK ESTATE), LONG ISLAND

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SCULPTURE PARK(FORMER FRICK ESTATE), LONG ISLAND

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SUNSET, JEMEZ MOUNTAINS, SANTA FE, NM

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BEYOND THE WALL His ear is placed flat against the wall.

The room is dark, very dark.

He has been trying to hear for hours.

It has his full, intense, concentration.

There are barely audible voices just on the other side as he strains to hear.

No, he knows it’s not his imagination, yet he also realizes that there is nothing but open fields for more than a mile outside the wall.

Yet he puts aside his puzzlement.

He believes it’s important, very important to know what is being said, since these words are, must be, being said just for him, only him, a message related to his destiny perhaps, that might make a critical difference in his life.

If only the voices would be louder so that he could hear, to know.

He waits.

He listens.

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BROOKLYN BRIDGE, NY

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NOT KNOWING I fear not knowing.

Not knowing their names or my own, being unaware to exactly where I am, or where in my life cycle I’m located, having lost the memories that define who I’ve been.

Not knowing that I have become so different from who I was that my own children and grandchildren avoid coming to see me.

Please, save me from that.

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SCULPTURE PARK(FORMER FRICK ESTATE), LONG ISLAND

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A SWEET BEGINNING Each day should be a sweet beginning.

When you see the beauty of every sunrise in each face, a brilliant flower in each of their eyes, hear the rhythmic, soothing music of the natural sounds all around you, with air that smells of freshly baked cookies, and the sounds of echoing laughter of children playing nearby.

When you know that wonder and surprise are just up ahead, and you can actually hear the heartbeat of your loved one quicken as they come close.

When every person is a door waiting to be opened, and you just have to chose which ones you want to walk through.

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SCULPTURE PARK(FORMER FRICK ESTATE), LONG ISLAND

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SCULPTURE PARK(FORMER FRICK ESTATE), LONG ISLAND

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SLIPPING AWAY How among all these people did wisdom disappear, evaporate, seep away?

I’m struck by how narrow their understanding, their circle of concern has become.

And, so quickly.

I recall having such vibrant, stimulating, conversations about the key concerns of our time.

Their compassion, knowledge, argumentative passion, was a wonderful thing.

Now, all concerns are focused on the personal comforts of the day, with perceived slights being events for brutal counterattacks.

Yet another cruelty of aging.

Disappearing, becoming someone they used to despise.

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BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN

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NY BOTANICAL GARDEN

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REMEMBER ME AND SMILE My Love, promise me.

Do not weep when you hear my voice whispering words of love in your dreams.

Do not weep when remembering the wonder of who, together, we were.

Know that, although I’m gone, you will readily find my heart in your memories, residing in these poems, and ever so tenderly in your dreams.

Know that during our times I was always busy gathering up bits of you that I found in the beauty of every sunrise and sunset, in the sweet fragrance of mornings’ flowers, in the joy and laughter of our children and grandchildren, in all the world’s wonders, and then kept them bound up with you so tightly in my heart.

So, do not weep, but always remember me and smile.

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NOTICE MORE DETAILS I want to improve my day.

Well, perhaps just a little.

To notice more of the details, more of the things frequently outside of my conscious awareness.

To see and listen better to the world in the background.

To listen to the wind, to the songs the bird are singing, to the way pine needles array themselves on the ground, to the movement of the clouds, to the color changes of the sky at dusk and dawn, to the imprint that animals make in the snow, to‌‌.

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RENEE’S GARDEN, SANTA FE, NM

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ABIQUIU LAKE, ABIQUIU, NM

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ABIQUIU LAKE, ABIQUIU, NM

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SUNRISE, SANTA FE, NM

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IT’S OK TO DO NOTHING Sometimes, just let the sweet delight of the day embrace you.

Be part of it, not apart from it.

You don’t need to do anything, you just need to be, observing, reflecting on surfaces, to simply notice, with no need to absorb, to make things more than they are, or to analyze, to try and decipher, or to try and take some action to make some unknown difference.

Yes, it’s ok to be mellow, to chill, to sometimes hold nothing in your hands, just like Giacometti’s sculpture, ‘Holding Nothing’, and to just notice the beauty and wonder around you.

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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THE TASK OF DEATH It was mine to do.

This so terrible task of death.

Unfair to my sister to have the burden, from which, I knew, she would never recover.

Our beloved mother was at her end, no realistic probability to regain consciousness, to survive.

A full life lived, much longer than she had expected, at 84.

Long enough to know her grandchildren, but too many years without my father who she loved so dearly.

Feeding tube out, sitting at her bedside while watching her slowly die.

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No other choice.

The task was more in my ’sphere’ because of experiences that had hardened me to the idea.

During the vigil, however, there were moments of some extraordinary reflective imagination when I found myself embedded in her thoughts, reviewing key markers, milestones of her life that helped me along to reach closure.

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BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN

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BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN

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‘WOMEN, WHAT IS IT ABOUT YOUR FEET?’ ‘Women, just what is it about your feet?’

This so strange preoccupation, this apparent obsession?

Oh, it’s not only about the shoes, with every woman being their own version of Imelda Marcos.

Have to have, must have, multiple versions of flats, different size heels, different finishes, colors, seasonal variants, what’s ‘au courant’.

Even when they are rarely or not worn at all anymore they are kept as trophies, forever it seems.

Easier to give up a husband/partner than the favorite pair of shoes.

Then the feet themselves —— the smoothing, polishing, and the nails with all the color variations and features, also occasional toe rings, and increasingly small tattoos.

I recall in 2008 when the economy tanked that all the nail salons were more packed than ever.

It doesn’t seem to matter that suspicious chemicals are used, or that the workers are a notch above slaves.

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Just stand and watch the pedicure process —— I mean the women sit on thrones, with hand(foot?) maidens giving them a massage, perfecting their nails, and adding the glitter of the polish.

Ok, now I’ve begun to notice that even fairly unkempt women often have models’ feet.

It also is a place where more elderly women have realized that their feet, when well cared for, show far less the markers of aging, and may even be worthy of being admired.

And it seems to be universal, regardless of geography, circumstances, age.

It’s a must do, must have, a life priority, with common sense and cost being irrelevant.

Women, I assume that you realize that all this is truly incomprehensible to men.

Men, there’s really nothing to be done, so my best advice is to just say, ‘you have gorgeous feet, and I love your shoes!’.

You will surely be very well rewarded for that!

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN

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AT BETH DAVID I’m standing here, offering both prayers and remembrances as the tears of love and memory roll uncontrollably down my cheeks.

It’s a beautiful Autumn day, the trees showing off their first new clothes, no chill yet in the air.

I seem to be the only person around.

Exquisite solitude.

Beth David Cemetery, at my Rotmistrowker Benevolent Society section.

This will also be my final place.

At the entrance gate I always note part of the inscription, ‘David Goshinsky, Honorary President’, my great uncle, and the date, 1906.

I’m here primarily to ‘visit’ my parents, grandparents, and great grandmother.

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As I stand looking about I also begin to wonder, just where all the rest of mine, back down my family line are buried.

All those who, unknowingly, made my life possible, who I never met, and all those so brutally murdered during the pogroms and the Shoah who had no one left to remember them, no one to visit wherever their remains remain.

I say a prayer for them all, for all they endured so that all of us who came after might have a better life, and for them to know that they have not been forgotten.

Amen.

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HARLEM MEER, CENTRAL PARK

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THE LAKE, CENTRAL PARK

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STILL BLOOMING I somehow can’t reconcile to the reality between my inner perceived identity and the ‘outer’ reality of having passed my 70th year.

However, I have chosen to continue to hold fast to the oft used expression, ‘one’s perception is one’s reality’.

I strangely see myself as in some sort of constantly regenerating bloom, having a willingness, and occasional mysterious ability, to flower, even dazzle, in most thankful gratitude to the externalities that allow me to continue.

Hope, desire, expectation, for what might be next, the surprises that life still has in store for me.

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NY BOTANICAL GARDEN

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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UP HERE It’s blistering hot and humid down there.

You can actually see the waves of heat escaping from the road, searching for a place to cool off.

Middle of a brutal Manhattan summer day.

After only a few minutes outside I was wet, wanting, needing, a change of clothes.

Felt like Kolkata.

But now I’m up here, in my apartment, the air-conditioning is on high.

I’m sitting quietly, watching my grandson take a well deserved nap.

The gentleness of his rhythmic breathing, his flushed cheeks.

I lean over, risking waking him up, and take a kiss, since I can’t resist.

I now sit back and wonder whether years from now, when I’m no longer here, whether he’ll remember any of our glorious times together, what he’ll recall about me, and what he will tell his children and their children about us.

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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PARTNERS, SYMBIONTS The clouds, in their slow sinuous movement, crawl through the valley, gently caressing the Rio Grande, as it follow its well known path, just as they both have done for millennia.

Partners, symbionts, in bringing sustaining life along their journey.

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EAST SIDE, MANHATTAN

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UN, EAST RIVER, NY

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A GATE OPENS A gate opens, and I step just inside.

There, above a slight rise at the horizon ahead, the sun is giving birth to a memory from the distant past.

A small pond, a gentle early morning mist forms an enveloping canopy.

A croaking bullfrog emits the only sound.

And there I am, 8 years old, waiting so patiently, watching, holding this large glass jar, with air holes poked in the cover, determined that it will be the new temporary home for this bullfrog that I’ve been stalking for several days.

Up before everyone else in this quest.

For this Brooklyn boy needs to connect, to hold a bit of the natural, albeit foreign, world in his hands, to make a new special friend, to care for it awhile, then to send him back to his pond, where he will still be king.

A precious moment, a precious memory, recovered now, as the gate closes.

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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RENEE’S GARDEN, SANTA FE, NM

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BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN

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SCULPTURE PARK(FORMER FRICK ESTATE), LONG ISLAND

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SOLITUDE He had grown used to the solitude.

Neither enjoying it nor regretting it, but simply accepting it.

Everyone who he had cared about, or who had cared about him, was gone, either dead, moved away, or who no longer knew their own name.

His days seemed to crash forward with the meaningless, rhythmic monotony of wave after wave pounding a shore.

He thought of himself as a dimming, retreating shadow, knowing that it wouldn’t be long before his final nightfall would arrive and he and his shadow would simply evaporate as though never having existed.

But still he persisted, primarily out of habit, with a vague, ill-defined, hope that perhaps some as yet undiscoverable pleasure would occur on some day before the final moment.

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NY BOTANICAL GARDEN

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MUSIC OF THE CITY I hear the rhythms, the music of the city.

Sure, it varies depending on where I am.

You need to listen though, carefully, identify the ‘instruments’, find the connection to your own internal music and then ‘hear’ it all as a new original song, now your song.

Right now I’m in a coffeeshop, dishes are clanking, a woman in heels pounding the hard floor, soft classical music in the background, a Mom talking to her two kids as they’ve stopped on the way to school, espresso machine steaming, cars and trucks out on a busy street with some honking plus a whooshing sound since its been raining, sort of like a jazz ensemble trying to find a shared pathway, and my contribution is the tone, the warm, gentle emotion of what I’m feeling as I type this poem that softens and slows down the outer intensity a bit.

Nice, real nice.

Yes, the city is filled with wondrous music.

You just have to listen.

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NY BOTANICAL GARDEN

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RENEE’S GARDEN, SANTA FE, NM

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RENEE’S GARDEN, SANTA FE, NM

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SITTING AT MY OWN SHIVA Ok, ok, I was wrong.

I admit it.

There actually is something ‘after’, well, ‘after’ my own death two days ago.

Too bad they covered all the mirrors here, because I wanted to see, you know, vanity, curiosity.

Yes, here I am in my NYC apartment (I guess ‘former’ apartment would be correct) sitting with my sweet, wonderful, loving, family at my own shiva.

I can see that I’m wearing a suit, black, and a tie, black, and my lapel is appropriately torn.

They have all the old photos out and are reminiscing.

Their words of love and remembrance bring tears of joy.

I am so very glad that I wrote all of those poems since so many of the ‘pieces’ of me still remain.

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It’s so nice to hear them take turns reading them aloud.

I need to sit here awhile to know that everyone will be ok.

I wish I could share that delicious food.

I awoke after my ‘departure’ in a large room, in an old wooden house, out in the countryside.

The windows were uncovered and it looked like Springtime with lush fields, rolling hills, wildflowers in full bloom.

The room was filled with all of my departed —— my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, all laughing, so happy to see me, hugs, kisses.

I wept and wept uncontrollably.

Strangely, they were all the same age as when they passed on, but looking healthier, much better.

Candles everywhere were creating this magical golden glow.

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There was this wonderful klezmer music coming from somewhere, and we formed a circle, holding one another, and danced and danced until exhaustion.

At one end of the room was this huge table filled with all of my favorite foods — blintzes, pickled herring, cookies and pastries galore.

My grandfather, Jacob/Yakov, took me aside to explain, that his was the ‘grandfather’s job’.

That for now I would stay and get ‘reacquainted’ with my family, and tomorrow to attend my own funeral, and then sit at my own shiva.

That after, I would be given an assignment ——- to watch over and help, along the way, one of mine, perhaps as the ‘guardian angel’ for a grandchild or great grandchild.

Oh my, having that task alone would be the greatest of gifts.

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TILLMAN ROAD WILDLIFE AREA - CLARENCE, NY

CENTRAL PARK, NY

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NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN

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DALE BALL TRAILHEAD, SANTA FE, NM

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DEFYING GRAVITY While I had always thought that the flame of desire would burn down on life’s wick with advancing age, it seems that mine and its intimate companion, passion, seem committed to defying natural gravity, hovering weightlessly above as the possibilities of love lead me on.

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HUMAN BLACK HOLES The homeless, the discarded, the abandoned.

They have become invisible, unreal shadows to us.

Human black holes.

They are unseen, unnoticed, having no acknowledged existence.

There is nothing that we care to see or hear from inside their impenetrable darkness.

Shame on us.

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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LOS ANGELES, CA

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TO OUTLAST thanks to Harvey Shapiro’s ‘Old Jew’ How did it come to pass that his love of a good cigar, a cheese danish, a game of golf, not having to get up in the middle of the night to pee, outlasted his desire for women?

And, how did it come to pass that her love of a game of mahjong or bridge, lunch with the ‘girls’, a good pedicure, finding a good pair of flats, outlasted her desire for men?

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OCULUS (WTC SITE), NY

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OCULUS (WTC SITE), NY

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NY BOTANICAL GARDEN

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DEFLOWERING It flowers with spectacular radiance.

Oh, the colors, the fragrance, hypnotic, blocking out all else.

Then sometimes, there is nothing else, I mean who in those moments needs anything else?

Love.

Then, as can happen, the petals may fall away, sometimes slowly, sometimes at lightening speed, as the momentarily hidden, less desirable, background moves to the foreground, as radiant love retreats, rapidly diminishing as though it never bloomed.

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OH, OH, OH, KOLKATA! Oh, oh, oh, Kolkata!

You have so many wonders, but when the stowaways on your city ship are humanity’s discarded, neglected, abused, forgotten, you can appear as a rotting corpse slowly drifting to an abyss at the world’s edge, where those stowaways only hope is a better life after their coming death and then reincarnation.

Who then are the guilty, who have sentenced them to this life, who ignore their plight, who are complicit, who stand by and pretend they don’t exist?

Each one of us bears that burden.

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BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN

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SANTA FE BOTANICAL GARDEN

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ECHO AMPHITHEATER, CARSON NATIONAL FOREST, NM

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NY BOTANICAL GARDEN

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AS NIGHT DESCENDS Night is descending.

It’s winter, late in the afternoon, the sun is hanging low onto the disappearing horizon.

My shades are up, and a soft glow of fading light mixes with reflections off of windows from neighboring buildings.

I sit in my chair, lights off, here at this moment, but uncertain whether I will be later, but where else would that be?

While time, for me, seems to have stopped, I do hear the barely audible, rhythmic, ticking of a clock somewhere.

I’m staring at a half filled glass of water on a nearby table, watching as a stray, dying, sunbeam passes through it, wondering if this moment has some other hidden significance for me.

Maybe I’ll find out, maybe I won’t.

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BLOODLUST I confess.

To having a bloodlust that I cannot suppress.

I know it’s a sin that I cannot cleanse from my heart, even on Yom Kippur.

It is retribution that I desire.

Retribution by my own hand.

For the murderers, and all those complicit, by their actions during the Shoah, the pogroms.

From my childhood to now I continue to hear the dead, their sufferings.

I still pray to God to anoint me as His avenging angel, so that I could sweep across the earth exacting revenge in the most brutal of ways.

Maybe it will be so with tomorrow’s first light.

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SCULPTURE PARK(FORMER FRICK ESTATE), LONG ISLAND

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OCULUS (WTC SITE), NY

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THIS RESTLESSNESS There is this unsettling restlessness in each of us.

A challenge that we struggle to contain, to understand, to shape.

It is this vague belief that there may be a better place, person, life, for us somewhere else out there.

That there is this imperative to wonder and search, so that this something else might be found.

Much of our life’s happiness depends on our ability to be master of this restlessness, to value and savor the wonder and beauty that we do have.

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LOS ANGELES, CA

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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AS THE DAY SLIPS AWAY This day, like all those before and those ahead, has begun to slip, to fade, away.

Night is coming.

The streets are starting to fill with folks on their way home, or wherever they need to be.

All moving to some sort of eventual, but predictable, cycle of closure.

Down into the subway, hailing a cab, waiting for their Uber, over to a garage to get their car, a walk home through crowded streets to their apartment.

Shutters rolling down at some shops, others staying open a bit later hoping for yet more customers.

Unrecognized, as they all move about is the reality, the immutability, of how the end of this day diminishes their available time.

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BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN

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SCULPTURE PARK(FORMER FRICK ESTATE), LONG ISLAND

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NEILAH It is that time between late afternoon and nightfall as the sun is in its final journey to the West.

Off in the far distance I can hear the first sounds of the creaking gate as it begins to slowly close.

These are the remaining moments of opportunity, to offer prayers, pleas, before final judgment is made and the inscriptions become indelibly fixed in The Book.

My heart, my thoughts, now rush forward in a torrent, not on my own behalf, but in memory of all those who I have treasured and are now gone, that their souls are safe and remain under the God’s protection bound up in the body of all ours forever and ever.

Amen.

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BOW BRIDGE, CENTRAL PARK

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DIABLO CANYON, SANTA FE, NM

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WERE THEY PRAYERS? Were they prayers?

It has only now occurred to me that perhaps some of my poems have actually been prayers, written at some mystical urging of my subconscious, for a purpose hidden from me at the time.

That as they were written the words floated up into the wind, which carried these words and their meaning out into a never-ending upward swirl, higher and still higher, climbing up into the far reaches of the infinite cosmos to a place where the Holy One, Blessed be He, waits to receive offered advice, to consider for action His obligation to fix His mistakes and to repair and perfect the world.

Who knows?

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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SACRIFICE They had both come to understand that a selfless willingness to sacrifice one’s own needs, desires, and preferences to one’s other is what gives love its most special meaning.

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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A MANIFEST DESTINY It comes from almost nothing.

From seemingly invisible bits, particles, the tiniest, that gather together, knowing somehow what they need to do from an embedded instructional manual containing informational complexities beyond our understanding, telling how to achieve a manifest destiny, how to expand to billions of required pieces that harmonize, to support each other, how to replicate, to enable survival, even able to adapt, to evolve in response to new realities.

In the end its own magnificent star system, in its time able to achieve unimaginable wonders before its end.

Life.

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BEYOND JUST BEING I do understand.

That there is a mystery and marvel to just being.

An unwillingness, an inability devoid of any motivation, to reflect, to ponder, to wonder about the unknown, to consider the impenetrable, to obsess about the purpose of life and the meaning of existence.

That a preoccupation with the realities and challenges of daily life are more than a sufficient concern and are sometimes overwhelming in and of themselves.

Unfortunately, however, somehow the potent combination of my genetic double helix, and my double helix of experience and memory, mixed with a big dose of interpretive reflection, forces me to probe beyond ‘just being’.

Oh, well!

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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SANTA FE BOTANICAL GARDEN

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PETOPHILIA WARNING: If you are a dog owner you might not want to read this poem.

I’ve had it.

I’m tired of dogs running loose, getting underfoot on mountain trails and in the park, barking and disturbing my solitude, seeing their ‘remains’ along the way, then walking the streets and trying to avoid more of their ‘remains’ and their ‘liquid’ dripping across the sidewalks.

It’s as though their owners believe that they and their dogs have some natural rights, in spite of laws to the contrary, to do whatever, wherever, and they have obviously lost perspective, a sense of appropriateness, and any respect for humans.

Ok, while I’m venting, there’s more……

I just don’t get this need to be master over another species, to keep them bound up in leather and chains around their necks, and to make them sit and beg for food and treats.

Not sure what Dr. Freud would say is the

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underlying personality disorder that motivates owners to pick-up and handle those warm, soft, odored ‘remains’ every day.

Gee, we can’t wait for our children to be toilet trained but it’s somehow ok to be picking up after their dog forever.

Am astounded at how many dog owners are also petophiliacs…….I mean sleeping with another species?!!

What’s that about, and what does it say about the desire for intimacy with one’s partner/spouse or any human?

When intimacy does manage to finally occur just where are those dogs?

If there is a need to express caring maybe the huge amounts of money and time spent on dogs would be better invested with adorable needy kids, right?

Also, so many of these owners are always talking to their dogs as though they understand.

I pass people in full conversation, so are they really waiting for a response from these often sweet but plainly dumb animals……..just because it wags its tail doesn’t mean it understands.

So, dog owners, please keep them on a leash, no waste of any kind where humans might step, no barking, and, I guess, go ahead and sleep and talk with who, or should I say, whatever you want.

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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GERALD’S GARDEN

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TIME STARING BACK AT ME Just who and what do I see staring back at me in the mirror?

Is it the grandfather, the father, the son, the husband, the child, who?

Is it hope, melancholy, a beginning, the approaching end, happiness, possibilities, missed opportunities, memories, longing, what?

Occasionally, just behind me, passing like a shadow, I’ve begun to notice the edge of a wing beginning to unfurl.

My angel is waiting.

So, yes, now I realize that it is time staring back at me in its many guises, putting me on notice, calling for me to pay attention, that there are fewer and fewer grains of sand in the top half of my hourglass.

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AS TIME RUSHES AWAY As time rushes with increasing speed away from me, I frequently find myself seeking to be alive in yesterdays.

There is this growing weight of guilt for not having made sure that my moments of greatest remembered and shared happiness and pleasure were not more central, frequent, dominant in my life.

I had thought that that opportunities for such moments would be endless, and always there for me. …………..I held her then, so tightly to me in the night…………I could feel her breathing, the beating of her heart, the warmth and fragrance of her skin……….

Moments of the most supreme intimacy, when we were just one, not two, undisturbed, as though there was nothing else in the world to do and such moments would last forever.

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NY BOTANICAL GARDEN

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TAOS, NM

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RIO GRANDE, NM

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TILLMAN ROAD WILDLIFE AREA - CLARENCE, NY

SANTA FE BOTANICAL GARDEN

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LETTING GO So, what is it in the depth of the night, while lying awake, trying desperately to return to sleep, that you relentlessly think about?

That you can’t let go of, no matter how hard you try?

Is it about some haunting mistake, an unrealized hope, a fear of vulnerability, an unrequited love, a wistfulness about a life ‘if only’?

Tell me.

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THESE NUMBERS My time will be soon, very soon, and there is nothing I can do to stop it.

These numbers, so brutally etched on my forearm, I refuse to think of them as what the abominations intended.

Instead, for me, they are part of our Jewish mystical tradition of gematria, where each number is part of a code that creates a meaning, here that meaning is a special prayer.

A prayer to the Holy One, Blessed be He. When the smoke, what will soon be left of me, ascends up and up into the heavens, I believe that He will hear this prayer and know to guide my soul to be bound up with all of mine under His eternal protection forever and ever.

Amen.

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BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN

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NY BOTANICAL GARDEN

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DEEP, DEEP, INSIDE THE NIGHT He lived deep, deep, inside the night.

It was in this quiet, unencumbered stillness, absent other distractions, where he could remember.

Her. Now that she was gone it was the chance for him to recall the treasured memories of their wondrous life together, it was these moments that he now lived for, all that he had left.

But now, occasionally, he was starting to forget, his ability to recall fading, he was slowly losing her, she was slipping from his grasp, and they were both tumbling into the void, forever.

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DELETE, RESTART This morning I had a moment of acute reflective anxiety, that everything that has ever occurred, every word spoken, every thought, every memory, all prior hopes, disappeared in a single instance, all gone as though they had never existed.

As though a master delete button had been pressed, then followed by a restart button with everything after being a blank slate, tabula rasa, a complete ‘do over’.

Everything and everyone reborn.

A new start, a genesis.

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NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN

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RENEE’S GARDEN, SANTA FE, NM

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DETERMINED He stood there, looking out, to nowhere in particular.

Perhaps waiting for friends, here in ‘his’ park, 1953, Brooklyn.

Seemingly in deep thought, concentrating, wondering.

Black hair, stocky, his dark deep set eyes mark him, in this neighborhood, most likely as a Jew, maybe a recent refugee.

If you watch him for awhile you can see that he knows his way around, having an unmistakable determination, confidence even at this very young age, in what he needs to, intends to do.

He is, surprisingly, keenly aware of what his generations before have learned through exclusion, torture, discrimination, genocide ——— that freedom, rights, opportunity, won’t be given to him, to them, it sometimes has to be taken, defended, prized.

And, he is determined to do just that.

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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A TIME TRAVELER WHILE STANDING STILL No boundaries, only hope and possibilities.

I am drawn to the distant horizon as I begin my early dawn walk.

The sprawling foreground is filled with the varied colors of wild flowers and vegetation in the meandering arroyo, with the Sangre De Cristo mountains framing the horizon, while above the just rising sun plays with the clouds coloring them gray, then purple, pink, gold, and finally white.

Here I feel part of, deeply connected to, everything in these early morning moments.

A time traveler while standing still.

Here now, knowing that the same here now has been, and will continue to be, unchanged for millennia.

Surprisingly, I’m somehow content to know that this will continue to be here even when I’m not.

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RENEE’S GARDEN, SANTA FE, NM

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RENEE’S GARDEN, SANTA FE, NM

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ECHOES OF MEMORIES Tonight is the first snow.

I’ve been waiting for it.

I really do love the snow, especially at night or just before dawn, when it’s fresh, still undisturbed.

It creates a dreamlike, ethereal, other worldly, landscape.

I’ve gone out for a long walk, to enjoy this moment.

It’s still dark, with morning just on ahead, as I now wander through the lower east side of Manhattan.

So very peaceful, quiet, no one else is about.

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So peculiarly magical for me to see mine as the first footprints in this just fresh snow.

I stop as I find myself at my morning destination on Essex Street.

It’s different now.

My mother was born right here, at home, late November, 1912.

I wonder if it was snowing on that night?

In quiet times like this I love to do a walkabout to visit the places where my parents and grandparents lived, to listen to the distant echoes of memories, to connect and to be momentarily part of the past.

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BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN

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SCULPTURE PARK(FORMER FRICK ESTATE), LONG ISLAND

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BEWILDERED Bewildered.

No longer sure of his place.

What he was supposed to do.

Even where he was supposed to be.

The days seemed endless.

He didn’t know how to fill them up.

Just wandering through them without purpose, towards an end he was starting to wish for.

He was tired, always.

He still wore his wedding ring as a reminder of who he had been when life seemed to have purpose.

Now alone.

Even his most treasured possessions, his memories, were slipping away.

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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CITY CANYONS I was just a little kid.

Brooklyn, early ’50s.

But I loved westerns, ‘The Lone Ranger’, ‘Hop-Along Cassidy’, so I imagined I was living in the rugged West.

The high, brown walled canyons, shear cliffs, rising up, often blocking out the sun.

I walked, navigated, my way through, hiking to all the places I needed to be.

There was this magnificent beauty to the rhythmic uniformity of their grand scale.

Yes, of course, I realized with my childhood imagination that this was Bensonhurst, my neighborhood, and it was the apartment buildings that formed the canyons with their rooftop mesas.

And, off in the distance was Manhattan, with its grand mountain peaks, rising ever upward, some even touching the sky.

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

165

GHOST RANCH, NM

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HEY, DON’T WORRY There are times when life is just indistinct, ill-defined, opaque, lacking clarity, infused with uncertainty, filled with ambiguity, without direction, with a potential to unsettle, confuse, create doubt, result in a loss of confidence.

Now, now, don’t panic, don’t worry.

Life is not a straight line to where you think you want to be.

Treat these moments as well deserved reflective stops on your ‘long and winding road’.

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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LOS ANGELES, CA

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BAT KOL Children, my children, and then all of mine who will come after.

Please listen.

It took me close to a lifetime to fully understand, so I want to share this with you now, while I still can.

Always look for the sacred, the goodness that is in those who you may see.

Listen carefully, always, to the voice, the bat kol, that you can hear within you, that has traveled across time and generations from the distant before to guide you to a righteous life filled with repeated acts of kindness and beneficence, to make your contributions to improving, to perfecting, the world in return for having had the gift of sharing its wonders.

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A VOYEUR? Somehow I have tumbled in on someone else’s thoughts, their dreams, their fantasies, their musings.

Just how did I find myself here?

And, whose are they?

Yours?

Am carefully stepping through a vast garden of desires, hopes, fears, memories.

No, definitely not my own.

But, strangely, that is me, I think, in a few of them.

It’s as though I have connected into someone else’s personal diary.

I know that I should try and find a way to exit since I am feeling like a secret voyeur, but I just can’t.

It’s simply too fascinating.

Again, tell me, is it yours??

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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RENEE’S GARDEN, SANTA FE, NM

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NY BOTANICAL GARDEN

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NOT RECOVERABLE It’s always been a puzzle to me.

How the beauty and wonder that I see and experience in the course of each day fails to be captured in my conscious thoughts as a fully recorded, recoverable, and prized memory, so that these moments can be called up, relished later, exactly as they occurred.

The mind just seems to have other, more mundane, priorities.

Strange how even at days end such cherished moments are forgotten while what we had for breakfast is remembered.

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PEOPLE DISAPPEAR People disappear.

People you love, friends.

Sometimes without warning.

I first realized this at age five.

They may be there one day and then gone, almost as though they never existed.

I couldn’t grasp, understand, how fragile, how uncertain, continued existence really was.

So, beginning at that age I developed this belief that my own life would be short.

I didn’t share that belief, and I don’t remember ever changing the way I behaved, except I did continue to have this internal, unshared, expectation.

It was the summer after I had finished kindergarten, which I had started younger than most at age four.

I used to walk or ride my new two-wheeler

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to Seth Low Park which was two Brooklyn blocks away, where several kids my age would play there on our own.

One boy in the group had a dad who was the ‘super’ in a nearby apartment building.

He was black, which was unique in that neighborhood.

Suddenly, one day he was gone, dead, from an accident in his building’s elevator shaft.

Only a few months after my beloved grandmother, Lena, died and I had a very difficult time accepting and processing it, and for awhile I believed, was convinced, that it hadn’t happened, and one day she would return.

This belief of a shortened life has never left me, and I think that the pleasure I get each early morning on awakening is simply due to surprise.

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ASPENS, SANGRE DE CRISTO MOUNTAINS, NM

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ASPENS, SANGRE DE CRISTO MOUNTAINS, NM

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MORE MUSINGS ABOUT TIME Albert Einstein: ‘…….the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion……’

Unfortunately, it eludes me.

An ability to sufficiently grasp an understanding of Einstein’s spacetime continuum and his description of a fourth dimension.

Because if I could I might have an even more meaningful appreciation of, and reverence for, the perfection of the design of the natural world.

Further, my internal sense of a continuous connection and bond to all of mine from the before, and all of mine extending forever forward, appears to align with my limited understanding of Einstein’s belief that the past, present, and future do coexist in time.

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Abraham Joshua Heschel: ‘…….that in all of one’s deeds a person’s chief task is to sanctify time.’

With the benefit of time, life experience, and reflection, I have come to realize the growing internal presence of a conscious spirituality that has rewarded me with a richer understanding of the soul within.

And I’ve importantly observed that one’s own conscious awareness of life’s brevity reinforces the need to sanctify the time that we do have.

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CENTRAL PARK, NY

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ISRAEL We are this place’s original people.

My own line, born here, forced out to what is now Morocco, onto Spain, expelled again, eventually into the Pale of Settlement, then emigrating westward.

The soil, the water, the air, are ours, affirmed by the Holy One, Blessed be He, for all time, reaffirmed by the world in 1948, defended against repeated onslaughts, and then making it bloom so far beyond everyones’ wildest hopes.

We have been unyielding in maintaining our covenant through more than two millennia of brutal discrimination, slavery, torture, wars, and genocide.

This small place is ours.

Now and forever.

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WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL, LOS ANGELES, CA

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WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL, LOS ANGELES, CA

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FOR ALL THIS WE GIVE THANKS For all we’ve had, for all we have, for all we still hope for.

For the opportunity to remember and honor those who gave us the breath of life, and all those from the before who enabled us to reach this season.

For the unconditional love and trust of our family and friends, and all those who wish us goodwill.

For the sweet treasured memories of those so dear to our hearts who are no longer with us.

For the chance each day to make the lives of those in need better.

For the joy, wisdom, and enlightenment we experience.

For the presence of beauty and wonder in our lives and in the world.

For all this, and so much more, we offer our thanks and our fondest wish for the end of hunger, poverty, and sadness, and that the days for all, now and beyond, will always be filled with bounty, love, hope, peace, happiness and fulfillment.

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SCULPTURE PARK(FORMER FRICK ESTATE), LONG ISLAND

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SCULPTURE PARK(FORMER FRICK ESTATE), LONG ISLAND

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SCULPTURE PARK(FORMER FRICK ESTATE), LONG ISLAND

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ECHO AMPHITHEATER, CARSON NATIONAL FOREST, NM

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Arthur R. Goshin first began writing poetry as he turned sixty. Educated as a physician and in public health, he’s had a forty five year health care career, first developing health centers based in communities of poverty, then developing and managing large not-for-profit health care programs. He currently serves as a board chair, board member or advisor for a range of entities including private companies, organizations, foundations and academic institutions. As he retired from ‘employed work’ (as he puts it) and began writing poetry, he also became the founder/funder/president/ceo of his own foundation (www.healthyworldfoundation.org) engaged in numerous health projects in Uganda and India. A website at www.arthurgoshin.com is under development that will include e-copies of Art’s recent books as well as selections of his photography. He splits his living time between New York City and Santa Fe with his wife Renee.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS THEY SHOULD HAVE WINGS .....................................................1 A HOLY OF HOLIES ......................................................................5 RESURRECTION ...........................................................................8 AN UNDISCOVERABLE ALIEN..................................................12 LOVE IS NEVER SATISFIED........................................................17 STOLEN LIVES.............................................................................18 A PURE WHITE LIGHT.................................................................23 ENCOUNTER OF ANOTHER KIND...........................................26 IN THE HEART.............................................................................29 LEFT BEHIND...............................................................................32 NO SUIT, NO TIE, PLEASE..........................................................34 BEYOND THE WALL...................................................................39 NOT KNOWING..........................................................................41 A SWEET BEGINNING................................................................43 SLIPPING AWAY..........................................................................46 REMEMBER ME AND SMILE......................................................49 NOTICE MORE DETAILS............................................................50 IT’S OK TO DO NOTHING.........................................................55 THE TASK OF DEATH.................................................................58 ‘WOMEN, WHAT IS IT ABOUT YOUR FEET?’...........................62 AT BETH DAVID...........................................................................66 STILL BLOOMING.......................................................................70

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TABLE OF CONTENTS UP HERE.......................................................................................73 PARTNERS, SYMBIONTS............................................................75 A GATE OPENS...........................................................................78 SOLITUDE....................................................................................83 MUSIC OF THE CITY...................................................................85 SITTING AT MY OWN SHIVA.....................................................89 DEFYING GRAVITY......................................................................95 HUMAN BLACK HOLES..............................................................96 TO OUTLAST...............................................................................99 DEFLOWERING.........................................................................103 OH, OH, OH, KOLKATA!..........................................................104 AS NIGHT DESCENDS..............................................................109 BLOODLUST..............................................................................110 THIS RESTLESSNESS................................................................113 AS THE DAY SLIPS AWAY.........................................................116 NEILAH.......................................................................................119 WERE THEY PRAYERS?.............................................................122 SACRIFICE..................................................................................125 A MANIFEST DESTINY.............................................................127 BEYOND JUST BEING..............................................................128 PETOPHILIA...............................................................................132 TIME STARING BACK AT ME...................................................137

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TABLE OF CONTENTS AS TIME RUSHES AWAY...........................................................138 LETTING GO..............................................................................143 THESE NUMBERS......................................................................144 DEEP, DEEP, INSIDE THE NIGHT.............................................147 DELETE, RESTART.....................................................................148 DETERMINED............................................................................151 A TIME TRAVELER WHILE STANDING STILL..........................153 ECHOES OF MEMORIES..........................................................156 BEWILDERED.............................................................................160 CITY CANYONS........................................................................164 HEY, DON’T WORRY.................................................................167 BAT KOL.....................................................................................171 A VOYEUR?................................................................................172 NOT RECOVERABLE.................................................................177 PEOPLE DISAPPEAR.................................................................178 MORE MUSINGS ABOUT TIME...............................................182 ISRAEL........................................................................................185 FOR ALL THIS WE GIVE THANKS............................................188

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