Three as a Magic Number

Three times dark, first in the mind,
second in January, pit of the year,
and third in subways going up and down
the hills and valleys underground,
I go from indoors to indoors indoors,
and see the Hudson River three times a week
from my analyst’s penthouse window. It
is a brilliant enlargement three ways:
in and out and fluvial. The river goes
like white smoke from the industries
to the north, and the rigged-up lights
of the Palisades Amusement Park
promise a west of pleasure, open space,
and a circus of whippable lions,
while the cliffs beneath them, made
of latent vegetation, the live rock,
and a fall of snow, seem to me to be
the hanging gardens of Hammurabi.