#MIDDLEBURY
Biking to the George Washington Bridge
Alicia Ostriker
It sweeps away depression and today
you can’t tell the heaped pin-white
cherry blossoms abloom along
Riverside Drive from the clouds above
it is all kerfluffle, all moisture and light and so
into the wind I go
past Riverside Church and the Fairway
Market, past the water treatment plant
and in the dusky triangle below
a hulk of rusted railroad bed
a single hooded boy is shooting hoops
It’s ten minutes from here to the giant bridge
men’s engineering astride the sky heroic
an animal roar of motors on it
the little red lighthouse at its foot
big brother befriending little brother
in the famous children’s story
eight minutes back with the wind behind me
passing the boy there alone shooting
his hoops in the gloom
A neighborhood committee
must have said that space
should be used for something recreational
a mayor’s aide must have said okay
so they put up basketball and handball courts
and if it were a painting or a photo
you would call it American loneliness
About this poem
“Biking to the bridge is one of my favorite activities since becoming a permanent New York City resident for the first time since I was 18. The bike path has the Hudson River on one side, traffic on the other, and I can do the ride in an hour door to door. If the poem captures both the energy of the city and the sorrow and loneliness threading through it, I’ll be satisfied.” – Alicia Ostriker
About Alicia Ostriker
Alicia Ostriker is the author of “Waiting for the Light,” forthcoming from the University of Pittsburgh Press in 2017. She lives in New York City and teaches in the M.F.A. program at Drew University.
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day@poets.org.
(c) 2017 Alicia Ostriker. Originally published in Poem-a-Day, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
