New York City

 After Leonard Cohen, Famous Blue Raincoat

There’s rain in the morning, the mid of December

I am looking for coffee and someplace to wander

New York is cold, but I like where I am living

The High Line Park is close by and the sparrows there are singing

I hear they’ve built the skyscraper national park* on the tip of an island

They sell tickets to climb them, ‘why should we’ isn’t on record

I came back with a sense of the place, a feel–

No, it wasn’t a Woody Allen film

Or like Sex and the City

Do you see what I mean?

As the rain cleared I saw it looked so much familiar

That highway from Delhi, that street like in London

The flowers on the pavement, the people rushing

Sights and smells from Bombay kept coming back, flooding

The book I had grabbed on my way to catch the flight

‘Invisible Cities’ by Calvino proved a good companion and guide

Well I see you there with the people, the buildings, those streets

One more crowded metropolis

Well I see you’ll, perhaps, disagree–

But know that I liked you, the instant I saw you

Your charm has its own familiar, peculiar sway

What more can I possibly say?

I guess I like living in cities– the energy, the madness–

I am glad we got acquainted that day

*Kurt Vonnegut famously referred to Manhattan as ‘the skyscraper national park’.