TheBanyanTree: A Summer Night from the Hudson's Banks

[redd_clay at bellsouth.net]

Tonight, I am on the banks of the Hudson.  

A fish out of water. 

A southern boy languishing along the banks of the mighty Hudson, just above the heights of Gotham I am. 

And there be Yankees about.

The New York Water Taxi sits tied to the dock at the corner of Main Street and Water Grant Street. 

Gulls dip and dart on thermals, downriver a haze occludes the view of the George Washington Bridge and barges ply the green waters.  

>From the Catskills and Opalescent Brook, the Mohawk, the Quassaic, the Battenkill, the Hoosic, and a myriad others they surge out of the hills ever downward . . . and tonight to meet me just above the Atlantic.

Couples couple by the riverside stage, kiss, and stare dreamily in each others eyes.  

Children skip down the boardwalk. The elderly shuffle along behind them.  

A blur of water and noise streaks past that I come to identify as a waverunner at full throttle.  

The distinct, organic smell of the river wafts up from the green chop.  A barge horn blows, startling the gulls.

Trains pass by behind me at ungodly speeds every 15 minutes or so, bound for Manhattan or Connecticut. 

I sit at the Whiskey Rio and nurse a bottle of Killians Irish Red.  Billy Joel sings, "Just the Way You Are" on the juke box.

A pretty woman sits at the bar . . . alone. 

>From across the room I order her a repeat of what's she just finished.

A smile from her, a nod from me.  A river breeze brings cool to the swelter of an early July day's night.

A southern boy could grow used to <could come to love, in fact> a summer night on the Hudson, me thinks.

Ho, waters of the Hudson!  

Ho, draft of the Muhheakantuck!  

Har, Tappan Zee!

Oh, if you only knew how glad I am just get to see you flow!