This
morning I have been reading from some
country
poets who have portrayed fond images
of
their childhood growing up on the farm—
rustic
home fires in winter, horse drawn wagons
hauling
bales of hay, callous handed grandfathers
on
combines harvesting fields of grain, aproned
mothers
baking Sunday dinner for the preacher
and
his family after church. I come from a far
different
place. A city boy I grew up to be, removed
considerably
from pastures of green and home-spun
fields
of familial memories. As a product of the streets,
my
take on life, poetically speaking, developed quite
differently.
For now, lets put aside the crush and
clamor
of vehicular traffic on rush hour streets, the
tall
wall-to-wall skyscrapers which line downtown
avenues.
Disregard for a time the museums and shops,
the
McDonalds and Kentucky Frieds, the manicured
pocket
parks, the narrow and trash lined alley ways,
the
spired churches, the domed mosques and temples
of
myriad faiths. Pass by the Come-to-Jesus professor
on
the corner of 5th and Market. Were I, in a few graphic
images
to amply describe the city life I have grown to
know,
I might begin with that hapless, disheveled and
intoxicated
black man curled up and sleeping it off over
there
in a doorway by the dumpster with no home and no
where
else on Earth to go. No country roads here. Uptown,
mid-town,
downtown, the city goes round and round. The
steel
and concrete jungle is a damned hard place to escape.
Should
one be hungry and in need, perhaps there is a
Sunday
bologna sandwich to be had at the St. Peter and
Paul
Shelter south of here over on Allen Street.
Chris
Hanch 5-1-18
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