As he tapped out his last text
“I’m running late. Almost ther”
It’s there
In the haze
Diminutive towers
Shadows beneath a piercing sun
As they are shadows
Piercing the shroud
Beneath a sky of mottled blue
In the evening rush there will be no misty cover
Crystalline clear; hard-edged architecture
Though the fog lays still upon commuters
These quiet hours
In the quiet streets
Shared by a few other strays
When being alone in my own skin
Offers a kind of camaraderie with other lone souls
Being alone in their own skin
And I wonder
That I have never stood
In a field of grain
Ripened
Ready for harvest
This golden crop
The wealth which builds cities
Known to urbanites like me
Only as bread
Or an image on a cereal box
Cabs stacked up
End to end
Filled with fares
Or seeking them
Crowded shops
Pedestrians
Littered streets
Swept clean by morn’
So full of life
Activity
This crowded block
Where could it be
So I set up in the median
Camera in hand
And let the people come
Reveling in
Faces in the crowd
But from here
Across the inlet
It resembles only
A small forest of brick and steel
Concrete and glass
Its denizens
Too small to register
I wonder why I live in the city
With its noise
Both visual and aural
With its go-go-go
And its stresses
Its meanness
And petty heartbreaks
I wonder this
Whenever I enter the idyllic
A place of peace
Where time is kept
By the movement of the sun
The seasons
Where change is driven
By the needs of nature
Rather than the pace
Of technology
Of politics
Of corporate commerce
Never did I suspect
So many realities
Could coexist