Fine breezy day in Providence. I went at lunchtime across the river to get some shoes for vacation, which starts tomorrow, so HGPoetics will probably be dormant until around Sept. 23.

You have to be a longtime Providence person to understand the impact of the riverfront renovation project. It's as if they discovered this beautiful old city, which had been hiding all along under mountains of gray grunge, melancholy rainy southern New England.

I wrote this about it at the time:

SLOW STREAM

   
                   Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down.
       

You walk the freeway bridge
across honking Acheron,
thinking of Antoinette
Downing, angel from out of town,
dusting the tumbled structures
just in time to stave off demolition —

 
and there they stand, lifted in the palm,
beautiful hand-built buildings,
stilted memory, vivid yet
with carved and colorful invention.

 
Or you —
among billows of winches,
jackhammers — watch them tear the
concrete off the bridge
and lift the river into view again.

 
That slow stream will remake these rigid banks,
remind the builders once again — break the mold.

 
Follow the bronzegold leaves’ free fall;
let go the framework — find your fluent home.

                                     
                                6.19.89