Origami

She writes on slips of paper
to fold into time or timelessness,
and, upon the weighted shadows
of old London Planes, she wishes
she had seen the bombed trains
of the seventies, the mad collage
of crude art maturing into style.

Boldly she steps behind the barricade
and down the shale stairs crumbling
by the River's Side. Pressed against
the gate, her camera captures
multicolored subway walls,
painted tags and spray cans.

If only she could crawl beyond,
go the way those sans abri go,
to touch the block and bubble letters...

She snap snap snaps the shutter;
and when she turns, she folds
her words, stacks them
in her dark space.

Copyright © Xiomara A. Maldonado 2009

All images in this post are Xiomara A. Maldonado's original photographs of Riverside Park in New York City. All of these images are copyrighted and watermarked. If you are going to utilize any of these photographs, please credit the artist as follows: "Photo courtesy of Xiomara A. Maldonado. Copyright Xiomara A. Maldonado 2008;" and create a hyperlink to this blog post. Please email me with a link to where my work is used. I would love to see what you do with it.

*edit - the version of the poem below is recently revised:

She writes on slips of paper
to fold into time or timelessness.

Upon weighted shadows of old London Planes,

she wishes she had seen the 70s— bombed trains,

mad collage— crude art maturing into style.

Boldly she steps: behind the barricade;
down shifting shale stairs
crumbling by the River's Side.

Pressed against the gate, her camera
captures multicolored subway walls,
painted tags and spray cans.

If only she could crawl beyond,
go the way those sans abri go,
to touch the block and bubble letters...

She snap snap snaps the shutter;
and when she turns, she folds
her words, stacks them

in her dark space.

Copyright © Xiomara A. Maldonado