Sunday Scribblings wanted to hear thoughts about December. Long ago and far away, I was a Manhattanite…
CITY SNOW AT EVENING
Central Park in December
At dusk the sun has dipped below
the stark skyline
casting reflections of blue
on the new-fallen snow
It’s as if even the snow knows
it’s part of an urban landscape
the color of steel and
the crunchy crust it so readily forms
As if to say,
“Hey, there’s nothing fluffy to see here
Move along, now”
Making my way across 72nd Street
the heat of the subway has already risen
and melted this fresh blessing
into muddy pools of rusted slush
It’s City snow, all right
It won’t last the night
© 2010 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
Sharp Little Pencil 
booguloo
There is a difference. You caught it nicely.
Sharp Little Pencil
Ahh, you’re a city dweller. Past or present or always?
Yes, now that I live in the country, I miss the city… and we’re moving to Madison, WI, so it’s the best of both worlds! You could not pay me to be a Manhattanite again… I love the city and the idea of it, but I’m not up to the pressure anymore, I guess! Thanks, hon, Merry Christmas, Amy
Debbie
thank you for this memory and December image! Beautifully done!
Sharp Little Pencil
Thanks, Debbie. A good memory for me, too! A
brenda w
You’ve given me a hankering for the city, thanks for providing a short visit rich with images. ~Brenda
Sharp Little Pencil
Ho ho ho, so ironic because you couldn’t pay me to live there now! But I heartily endorse the idea of everyone spending some extended time in NYC. It’s a city like no other. Me? I did NYS, now I want to see Paris! Amy
Jae Rose
I would love to see Central Park in the snow..you captured how brief the magic can be..all the sounds came alive too! Jae
Sharp Little Pencil
Central Park with fresh-fallen snow is lovely. Stroll near the statue of Alice and see her draped in white. The trees become fine lace and people remember magic…
Thanks, Jae. Amy
Sherry Blue Sky
I love it – you have captured the feel of the city exactly. I have seen on tv how beautifully lit up New York is at this time of year, must have been great to be in the thick of it.
Sharp Little Pencil
As I have said to others, I wouldn’t live in NYS again, but everyone should have at least one Christmas in NYS. The best church for me is St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal (just down Fifth Ave from the giant ‘gift shop for Jesus,’ St. Patrick’s Cathedral. St. Bart’s is darker and less commercial.
As for the windows, although FAO Schwartz is no more (remember the movie ‘Big’?), the shops are still lovely, especially the smaller shops on the upper West Side, on Columbus Avenue. Just avoid Starbucks and support the more local places!! And go to Chinatown – Lin’s Dumpling House on Elizabeth Street for dinner; cross Canal to Little Italy for cannoli and cappuccino for dessert!! Ah yes, I remember it well… Amy
Wendy Erman
Rusty slush! It’s so interesting that all these images are harsh, yet beautiful, just as any big city is a combination of angles and softness, attitude and silence. As a woman who has grown up pretty much in the country, I find it compelling and try to steal away to the city to get little tastes of that dichotomy.
Sharp Little Pencil
So worth the effort to get to the city! I was raised in the country, but after deciding to pursue jazz as a career, “blew the pop stand” when I was 18, eventually spending time in all sorts of cities with unique flavors – NYC, all business, hustle and bustle; LA, where you don’t let your tan lines show; San Juan, where I labored to learn as much Spanish as possible to enlarge my pool of friends; and Hamilton, Bermuda, where “please” and “thank you” are like currency… manners are everything, which I adored.