meeralee
Manhattan Wildlife: Cheap Thrills and Disenchantment
“Thou art now the very emblem of an old war-horse turned out on the barren heath – thou hast had thy paces in thy time, but now a broken amble is the best of them.”
from Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott
The days of wild glory have long since gone for this once-gallant steed. He stands, stoic and riderless, awaiting the day when he is dragged to the mechanical knacker’s yard. That he has outlived his time is not his fault. He may be old, he may have been neglected or cruelly-treated, his eye may be dimmed and he may no longer retain the beauty of his youth…but he still stands ready.
The fault…if fault exists…lies with the changing of time. This weary destrier is an anachronism, a creature of a less sophisticated era. He belongs to the bygone age of gears and cogwheels. He is an alien in the Land of Ones and Zeroes. He has no place here.
But nevertheless, here he stands. Ready. Waiting. If you pay the toll, he’ll trot for you. Not smoothly, perhaps, nor with grace, but with a creaky stubborn tenacity. A broken amble on the barren heath of a Manhattan sidewalk.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
