Gowanus
by Gerald Wagoner
Brooklyn’s skyline is a dank,
indistinct brume with snow soon.
Another empty rusted warehouse
opposite this side of the canal,
useful last month, awaits demolition.
Low old buildings on both sides of
The Gowanus are being leveled.
More glass high-rises will go up.
Young people, couples with bright
eyes will move in. Tonight the lone
man who dragged his clacking travel
bag along the canal’s new esplanade
will never know what his abrupt
clatter disrupted. Will never know
a heron opened broad, dark wings.
Rose in silence to assume the night.
Gerald Wagoner, author of When Nothing Wild Remains, ( Broadstone Books, 2023), and A Month of Someday, (Indolent Books, 2023)) says his childhood was divided between Eastern Oregon and Cut Bank, Montana, where he was raised under the doctrine of benign neglect. Gerald has a BA in Creative Writing, U of MT 1970, and MFA Sculpture SUNY, Albany. He has lived in Brooklyn, NY, since 1982. He exhibited and taught Art and English for the NYC Department of Education until 2017. Upon retirement he shifted his focus to poetry.
Acknowledgements: 2018: Visiting Poet Residency Brooklyn Navy Yard. 2019, 2021-23: Curator/ host of A Persistence of Cormorants, outdoors reading series by the Gowanus Canal. 2023 April, Poets Afloat Mini-Residency, Waterfront Barge Museum.
Selected Publications: Beltway Quarterly, BigCityLit, Blue Mountain Review, Cathexis Northwest Press, Night Heron Barks, Ocotillo Review, Right Hand Pointing, Maryland Literary Review, Burningword
