voices

The past sixteen months have the been the busiest, most gratifying time of my life. Again, my position as mayor has allowed me the priviledge of serving the community I love. I’ve spent every working hour trying to ensure that the goals outlined in our comprehensive plan, the voice of the majority of residents in our community, have been implemented. To that end, revitalization of vacant, industrial buildings had been identified as key to achieving our aspirations.

We had been fortunate early on in my administration to land the interest of well-qualified developers for both the Chalmers and Esquire sites. These were tremendously exciting prospects, as the City has been in a steady decline for decades.

We now face a crisis with far-reaching consequences. These projects may be at risk because of politics or personal agendas. Our reputation in the region and the future are too important to buckle to these interests.

Our Council needs to hear from its constitiuents in support of these efforts, so that they make balanced decisions in our regard. Please see the list of council members below and make your concerns known one-on-one. Call your ward alderman, or call all five, but please call.

Voice your opinion and if you don’t get through, leave a message.

COMMON COUNCIL MEMBERS

First Ward: Joseph Isabel
843-5185 P.O. Box 581, 26 Yale Street, Amsterdam, NY 12010

Second Ward: Daniel V. Roth
542-0723 7 Creekway, Amsterdam, NY 12010

Third Ward: Kim Brumley
843-4311 75 Evelyn Avenue, Amsterdam, NY 12010

Fourth Ward: William Wills
843-4660 17 Catherine St., Amsterdam, NY 12010

Fifth Ward: Richard Leggiero
843-0808 101 Florida Ave.,Amsterdam, NY 12010

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poem

Birches

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay
As ice storms do. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow crust—
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter of fact about the ice storm
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows—
Some boy too far from the town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father’s trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig’s having lashed across it open.
I’d like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

– Robert Frost, Public domain.

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