Mountain rains

my fingers are pruning from the empty cold soda bottle i’ve been holding since five. there are no trash cans in sight. the cops hauled them away during the pope’s visit. i don’t see any cabs but miraculously, there’s still buses. in the the 79th crosstown, there are only three of us, the two other, a jewish couple, perhaps on their way to their local synagogue. and i, despite all traffic advisories, decided i should be in this part of town to meet the guy who is working late around here. there is a chinese painting in the met, a fan, really, mounted as an album leaf.  in it is a homeless refugee living in a rustic seclusion. on the upper right side of the painting is a poem written by the painter himself, the last lines of which talk about how in the evening, the recluse retires to his refuge, a deserted grotto, and has nothing to do but listen to the rumbling rains on the other side of the mountain.