As we pull away from the pier
the bundled variegated crowd
of commuters and tourists, pilgrims of a kind,
chattering in a medley of mother tongues,
flock to starboard
e pluribus unum
to catch a glimpse as we pass.
I realize I’ve never seen
Liberty in person, lifting up her lamp—
a celebrity in the flesh,
although her flesh is copper, her bones iron
(a cousin to Monsieur Eiffel’s dame de fer)
and though the golden door in days like these
is shut against the yearnings of the huddled masses and the poor
she stands there, great with gravitas, clothed in verdigris
(the “green of Greece,” she is an ancient goddess!)
colossal yet a woman, dwarfed by sky-crowding towers.
And then I hear the black-haired girl in a pink coat, who points
tugging at her mother’s sleeve,
hopping in a little joyful dance.
“Mira! There she is!
She’s beautiful!”
(Her mother adds, she was a gift from France.)
“She’s beautiful,” says the girl, “even though she’s green!
She’s beautiful, even though she isn’t real!”
And we all lean
out for a better look
and I’m surprised by everything I feel.

Photograph by Yunus Erdogu via Pexels (creative commons).