Urban Altarpiece, by Anne Waters Green

The Voice of the City of New York Interpreted, by Joseph Stella (USA, b. Italy) 1920-22

Urban Altarpiece

Harbors teem in daylight. Tugs guide ships to berths.  Longshoremen heave and grunt as they load and unload cargo. Fog horn whistles resound for miles. Stella ignores the bustle. A night sky looms over tanks, piers, ocean.

Weary stevedores
Fall asleep on subways home
Wharf rats claim the port

Taxi cabs swerve and honk down Broadway. Tourists stumble or skip along crowded sidewalks. Trains rumble underground. Theatre marquees shout silently. Neon bounces off rain slick streets.

Backstage angels pray
Nervous directors fidget
Actors peruse scripts

Modern buildings tower over brownstones. Industry breathes energy into city air. New York floats above Manhattan Island like a giant ocean-going vessel cutting through waves, conquering land and sea. Does the center panel pay homage or hurl blasphemy to the cross of Christ?

As speculators applaud
Wall Street’s rampant greed
Girls toil in sweatshops

New York vibrates, celebrates, dominates. Midtown north, midtown south, the Big Apple pulses with sound. Streetcars clang, vendors hawk hot dogs, newsboys holler “Extra,” bands boom Sousa marches, pipe organs blast and whisper fugues and sonatas.

News hot off the press
Nineteenth amendment passes
Women gain the vote

The bridge sweeps over the East River, cambered span soars high above barges, scows and merchant ships. Borough to Borough.  Manhattanites promenade on Coney Island, Brooklynites picnic in Central Park.  No need for ferries.
​
John Roebling’s brainchild
Towers, girders, steel cables
Strung across the sky
 
Anne Waters Green

Anne Waters Green is a retired attorney and administrative judge.  She recently returned to coastal Georgia after years in western North Carolina.  Her work has appeared in Ruminate, Kakalak, Salvation South, Delta Poetry Review and other journals and anthologies. Kelsey Books published her chapbook, Minute Men and Women,  in 2021.