M. A l e x a n d e r
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NEW BRIDGE
 

It cannot rain forever,
even this close to Hackensack,
it cannot militate forever,
even this close to the water,
it cannot close us out forever,
even this forbidding briar,

aluminum arrowheads,
these imperatives -- STOP --
NO STOPPING OR STANDING --
YIELD -- U TURN -- ONE WAY --
cannot obscure, cannot obviate,
ancestral places, ancestral retreats.

The dance screeches to a halt.
Cars pile up, cars & their parts,
hubcaps, tires, cars rare & antique,
stall in this bone-yard, & accelerate
no further than this. No thru-traffic,
but through Historical Society use.

A commemorative plaque
weathers the names & dates of
the freeholders & socialites, whose
patronage sanctifies this real
estate, this sandstone homestead,
this sword that cannot be withdrawn.

The past is present under
arthritic birches. An apartment
complex, the Stueben Arms,
holds in its arms a former
barracks. Wet grackles serve
sentry duty for the drillmaster.

Perform a figure eight,
three times in succession,
a dozen times, or two dozen.
It's an instinctual response,
an ingrained patriotism,
a loyalty for the soil.

It is about dusk as
the head of the troops
rides down to the narrow
tidewater stream, the dock
beyond church & courthouse.
We continue on foot.

The last house on the left
looks to be too small to house
history. Our expectations cannot
fit through the doorway, brush
against a bare ceiling. Old books,
tableware, quiltwork, pastimes.

Ancient by American
standards, the landing at
New Bridge casts its iron
shadow-work over white silt
riverbed; closed to visitors,
the General, in particular.

Two PSE&G trucks &
a chainlink edged with barbed
wire: DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE
EQUIPMENT. Slick tarmac &
transformers bring the sky
to the ground. We shuck our shoes.

Then, at last, the white birds,
the slow water, a refuge where
"the mill, once powered by the tides,
burned in 1852 after a century of service."
The house in its serviceable vantage
grants us this recess, this garden,

even this forbidding briar.
It cannot close us out forever,
even this close to the water,
it cannot militate forever,
even this close to Hackensack,
it cannot rain forever.
 

    PROLEGOMENON
 

G Washington Br (I-95),
early on the rise as always,
surveys the damage done to
his county map over breakfast.
Across the North River,
Fort Washington Ave
falls in ruin. Now, the city's
outward walls hang ready with
banners of the largest expeditionary
force known to history, & word
has it that Great British pine
barrens to high Palisades
have come; our fortifications
by this shore by this become forfeit.
The bulk of our supply, now falls
wherever it happens to fall, to
feed the army of the Old World
as it closes in. "I am wearied,"
he has written the night before,
"almost to death with the retrograde
motion of things." Biographers
treasure the iconography, as
Washington towers in his
stirrups, hurdles the distance
in three quarters of an hour --
Others accept that Greene's men
know well enough how to run
at their own discretion. Never-
the-less, a new order echoes
above the Pandemonium.
Forget the provisions.
"Some hundred barrels of flour,
most of our cannon & a considerable
parcel of tents & baggage." Forget
decorum. Forget the utensils,
the ledgers, the correspondence,
the placenames that make
this property seem familiar.
Listen only to these directions,
& follow them to the final letter.
 

    THE CLOSTER HORSEMAN
 

Warships scuttle like roaches
        under the fog; a shadowy

vanguard infests the narrow
        clefted Palisades --

A foregrounded puddlesplash
        punctuates a horse-

hoof on the gallop. Occult knowledge
        whitening the eyes of

mount as well as rider --
        as Anonymity comes to

the rescue, as Fame encroaches --
        Which one do we worship?