city of ships



words by walt whitman on the edge of the hudson
await visitors of the north cove yacht harbor entrance to
the world financial center.

a block from the world trade center, the full expanse
of the quote blocked by rebuilding material and
barricades, whitman's words have acquired yet another
layer of meaning in these post days:





City of ships!
(O the black ships! O the fierce ships!
O the beautiful, sharp-bow’d steam-ships and sail-ships!)
City of the world! (for all races are here;
All the lands of the earth make contributions here;)
City of the sea! city of hurried and glittering tides!
City whose gleeful tides continually rush or recede, whirling in and out, with eddies and foam!
City of wharves and stores! city of tall façades of marble and iron!
Proud and passionate city! mettlesome, mad, extravagant city!
Spring up, O city! not for peace alone, but be indeed yourself, warlike!
Fear not! submit to no models but your own, O city!
Behold me! incarnate me, as I have incarnated you!
I have rejected nothing you offer’d me -- whom you adopted, I have adopted;
Good or bad, I never question you -- I love all -- I do not condemn anything;
I chant and celebrate all that is yours -- yet peace no more;
In peace I chanted peace, but now the drum of war is mine;
War, red war, is my song through your streets, O city!





lower manhattan series - april 2002





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divinestra photos by anthony risser