the varied carols I hear

Times Square on November 4: it is perhaps one of the few times the Square is full of native New Yorkers. We are celebrating not the fall of a new year and soon-to-be broken resolutions, but something real, something hopeful, something that requires Walt Whitman and a few good yalps.

An NYFD firetruck attempts to navigate the throngs. Our eyes on the screen high above the vertex of Broadway and Seventh Avenue, we part slowly. The driver begins to tap on the horn, syncopating the blasts, and we join in: "O-ba-ma! Yes we can! O-ba-ma!" We wave as they crawl by. One fireman, suited up, arm on the windowframe, puffs on a cigar.