CityScapes: A Poem for a World in Chaos

The city is full of perfectly manicured landscapes, designed to imitate natural, balanced nature.

A to do list of mowing, pruning, shaping, sculpting…

But anyone who has ever looked for love knows that seeking perfection is futile.

I like the wild city.

Those spots where a check box was missed.

Where dry dust blows up in the wind because no one could pin it down.

Where weather rusts forgotten gadgets.

Where loose gravel runs down in the rain.

Where roots split the cement and vines escape over the fences.

Where the river floods, wondering what the purpose of a bank is.

Sometimes when I watch ducks swim in a concrete river, I feel sad for them.
How selfish we are to design this place for ourselves, thinking little of them. And they go on idly about their lives. It is all they have ever known.

But then sometimes I wonder if they’d laugh to find out we think we’re in control.

Are the old trees passively watching the evolving cement landscape, knowing this too shall pass?

That time is longer than this.

That love is more than this.

That life is stronger than this.

Indeed what does anyone do, when things are falling apart?

Do you cling to what is comfortable? And what when that too, dissolves?

Do you crumble and wilt? Do you lament that no believes you anymore?

Or do you thrust your roots deep into the toxic concrete? Unwilling to give up your space?

Knowing that time is longer than this.

That love is more than this.

That life is stronger than this.