Gertrude Stein of Bryant Park
slouches on her pedestal like Buddha
eyes down, inward turned, more serious
than you can possibly imagine, more serious than all
the serious people in the park, oblivious to the straw hatted
pianist playing 1920’s jazz, to the French girls making chit chat
sound like poetry, to the film crew and lunch-hungry throng, the world
in packed microcosm, to the great books of history on a kiosk by the bar.
No one wants a thing to do with her.
Even the pigeons offer her a wide berth.
All she has to show for all those years so serious
is the detritus of trees in between her downward hands.
It is enough.
