London

The view from our London office: Christopher Wren meets the Shard.

The beautiful weathervane is on St Anne and St Agnes church, one of many built or rebuilt by Wren after the Great Fire in 1666.

And the Shard is the new Renzo Piano skyscraper just completed south of the river.

I'm only in London a few days so I may never get acclimated enough to have anything intelligent to say about the dizzying jangle of old against new that the City has become.  I certainly don't tonight; just trying to stay awake past 6pm is enough of an achievement for today.

Urban poetry

Layers of old paint, like continents and oceans on an old globe, on a fireplug in Hell's Kitchen.

I'm spending Thanksgiving weekend in London, so travel photos will resume shortly.

Sunday bird blogging

Just a gull, but the background is a nice complement to the speckly coloring on his head and neck. And I love that yellow eye.

Saturday reflections

I like the way the brick townhouses being reflected in the windows are such a lovely warm gold. It feels cheerful and optimistic, during what are still, sadly, dark times for too many people in this city.

Best Western

This week's urban poetry -- a carriage horse on West 38th Street.

Sunday bird blogging

A tufted titmouse in the park a few weeks ago.

Saturday reflections

A building under construction on Eleventh Avenue.

I like the contrast, how some of the windows have no reflections and display their empty unfinished interiors, while just to the side and below, reflections provide a mask in crazy drips and circles of black.

Urban poetry

Inquiring minds want to know.

There's a seabird above you gliding in one place like Jesus in the sky

Bonus bird blogging. I ended up on the waterfront, walking along the Hudson. The park on the pier is still closed, and there are some mountains of uncollected garbage in the streets, but otherwise it was a normal Sunday.

This picture reminded me of the Jackson Browne lyric above, though I am confident that the last thing anyone on the Eastern Seaboard wants right now is to be Rocked on the Water.

Gas lines

I went for a walk this afternoon, just around the neighborhood, wanting to pretend for a while that it was just another Sunday.

There was a block-long line to the Hess station on 44th Street, but it seemed like a good sign that they were open and filling 'er up, even if there was a wait. Then I looked downtown as I crossed the street.

Another block-long line. And beyond that, another. The cops were sending motorists who tried to cut in back to 38th Street, so the line was at least six blocks long. And a second line on 44th Street stretched all the way to the river.

Sunday bird blogging

The parks have reopened, but I'm not eager to go survey the damage, so here's a picture of a cardinal from last spring.

Cardinals live here year-round, and it always cheers me up to see that flash of color in the grays and browns of winter. It's like a promise that color, and life, will return to the world.

Poetical Saturday

Though mild clear weather
Smile again on the shore of your esteem
And its colours come back, the storm has changed you:
You will not forget, ever,
The darkness blotting out hope, the gale
Prophesying your downfall.

-Auden, There Will Be No Peace

Photo of the grassy overhang of a turf roof in Norway, after a rain.