love is never easy but if it transmutes into indifference then it dies

W.S. Merwin, pt II: "By the Avenue" & Union City, New Jersey

I wanted to find the building where the American poet W. S. Merwin lived when he was a child, as well as "see" the Hudson River from the perspective that he had experienced. I knew that the First Presbyterian Church of Union City, where his father was minister no longer existed. It had been situated atop the majestic Palisades and was an imposing building, but no longer quite as grand as it once was when the Merwin family moved to Union City. Demolished, and, according to the reporter Margaret Schmidt (nj.com, april 20, 2009), it was an empty lot of brick, concrete, weeds and trees. First the apartment building where his family resided was photographed; a structure that in its own right was impressive and recalled an earlier day when architecural styles--Renaissance and Gothic-were freely mixed, here evident on the facade's cornice.
Part III will take us to the entrance and a view intoa hallway that still has its marble veneer.

To Glass by W.S. Merwin

To Glass

Which of you was first
you or the days

at pretending not
to be visible
to be there but not visible

by fire out of sand

which of you first
started to look
like the other

and to look like
the air
and the hour
and the colored light
that you allow us
to see through you
to recognize the day
turning out of reach

while you appear to be
stillness itself
no one at all
holding in place

the promise
of the known world
on the other side

which the birds fly into
the last time