I am no stranger to the awe of distant, vistaed peaks

When robed in snow or sylvan garb, bejeweled by flowing creeks.

Nor blind to the pelagic tides that strike, then flee the beach

And rush by lunar law to kiss horizons out of reach.

The charms of Sister Nature do reflect our parentage –

The grandeur of Almighty God, our common privilege.

But God hoards not heredity for things evolved, unwilled;

He gives the mind of humankind capacity to build.

I have beheld the summits of that ingenuity

And hacked through labyrinthine jungles of humanity.

I’ve trod the floor of canyons of stupendous architecture

When vantaged from my sojourn through the surging viatecture.

At day, the traffic’s rhythmic riot immolates the notion

Of rest through rites of the religion of incessant motion.

The splendor of diverse immensities that rival sky

Effuse colossal shadows and the denizens belie.

At dusk, the pageantry of commerce burns in banners gleaming

A gospel of exchange of coin unto the masses teeming.

The wares of high and low assault the throngs of passersby:

Appeals to ear, an orgy of bright radiance to eye.

At night, this meta-edifice mirrors the sky it scrapes

In earthbound constellations shining, the lamps of cityscapes.

This pompous ocean of illumination shall gainsay

The darkness of the absent sun and counterfeit the day.

In passing by that idol to the goddess Liberty,

Southwestern-bound upon a bay, I gaze northeasterly

A glimpse — which shatters sense — of forests of futurity;

The earth in stunning miniature and its plurality.

That vision of the capital of all the modern world

Is carved in memory forever: vivid, stark, unswirled;

And bellows through my veins a hymn that endlessly repeats

The wonder of a lifetime when I paced Manhattan’s streets.