The city tosses, turns, and finally rises,
Surrendering to daylight and giving itself over
to the bustling movements of its citizens.
At the crosswalk, an old codger in rags holds a panhandling sign,
And nearby a bearded hippy plays guitar.
The sound of beggars, musicians, bored businessmen,
And all the teaming masses drift through back alleys,
And float through the air like the heady perfume of car exhaust.
Each street, each block, each break in the never-ending flow of man’s own personal jungle.
Brings to mind stepping into a whole other world.
Here, in one such strange nexus, a building likened to a castle,
Stares across a narrow stretch of road at an abandoned building,
Cracked broken and peeling, tattooed with graffiti from a hundred vagabond artists.
It conjoins directly to a new building,
the fresh, well maintained walls of which offer striking contrast.
The confused, confounding nature of the true jungle is in this manmade facsimile
More well reflected than anywhere else in the world.
The muggy air rings with life, the heat is stifling,
And for all that it has a strong allure.
This city, and all cities.
For in every corner, at every street, life bleeds from a city.
It grows from the crack like a flowering weed,
And in truth,
Is a flower born in the streets of a city, atop the stem of a dandelion
Any less a flower than a rose from the heart in the woodland?
To me, that a flower could be so brazen, so proudly out of place,
Makes it all the more a thing of beauty.