I'm sitting in a park in the West Village where I sometimes stop to write and collect my thoughts. This evening got dark early due to a day that was gray and half rainy. My seat is on a dry bench under a lamppost where my writing hand's shadow is cast across these words. I think about changing my seat but keep on jotting anything automatically, including notes to self; buy newspaper, pickup laundry... The fountain in the center of the park, or rather 'square,' is gushing, keeping a rainy-day-effect, as traffic rushes up Avenue of the Americas. Church bells from Our Lady of Pompei across the street make the square feel more like an authentic piazza. Seated proudly on an opposite bench is an older, sea-fairing-like man with a hat, white beard and pipe, leaned back with his legs crossed, taking in the place. He seemingly has time on his hands and doesn't fit in the urban landscape.
I always wanted to meet Lawrence Ferlinghetti. I once read how Tom Waits took his copy of 'A Coney Island of the Mind' to the City Lights Café in San Francisco where Ferlinghetti hangs out, and left it for him to sign, and the author obliged. I'd like to do the same. We share things in common, the poet and I. He was born in Yonkers. I grew up there. He's an Italian-American whose last name rhymes with spaghetti. He lives on the west coast. I'm left-handed. He was born in March, 1919, and wrote a great piece a long time ago, called "The Old Italians Dying." When I would sit down to eat as a kid, my Nonna would always put the fork in my right hand.
