0030 Motion Picture Features Central Park Poem by Michael Shepherd

The other day in Central Park
a park-keeper said, that urban parks
were motion pictures, before
motion pictures … except that,
they were the picture; you
did the motion…and
I savoured that remark which seemed
to hover on the edge
of poetic profundity and revelation

and, inconsequentially, threw up a vision
of Garbo, Swanson, Crawford, Davis,
taking a quiet winter morning’s walk
behind large dark glasses and an upturned collar;
and my mind, taking too its mental morning stroll
in Central Park, walked with a
new light-hearted springy step, a sparkling eye,
breathing clean fresh cold green air,
the sun catching frost on leaf and
the slow surface of cold lake water,
winter sunshine lighting expertly
the long shot, the camera’s focus,
the dissolve, the swelling music
as the credits gently roll out
their farewell to a dream;
the motion picture of the mind.