Between Tall Bildings

Between Tall Buildings

Between tall buildings stacked with
Brick, concrete, glass and steel--
As sentinels lined shoulder-to-shoulder
Walled against the light outside--
Frenzied streets and walkways run,
Run heavily with a steady,
Stop-and-go synchronous flow.

The downtown city is a magnet
Drawing the workers in, those shoppers,
Tourists and vendors in, all persuasions
From every flavor in--panhandlers and
Beggars, derelicts, moguls, saint
And sinner, a caldron boiling hot
As the swirling Seasoned Stew of
Humanity in.

The sky-rise spires sway gleaming
As sun-kissed Babylon towers
Showering down a silver-gold
From Heaven above into the
Shadowed Limbo below.

And block after city block, the maze
Runs away, one-way this
And one-way that--
Making concentric circle-squares to
Nowhere except around, round and
Round around, leading back to where
You've been--you, smaller now,
Less somehow than before you came.

Only with map in hand or ferried in taxi or bus,
Perchance endowed with a keen sense of
Direction, by wit or fortune eluding the deception
Can one hope to make their escape.

I have wandered confounding scenes in such places,
Cities flocked furious with mute and anonymous faces,
Where words come only from pleading souls in need:
"Please Sir, do you know the way?"
"Ma'am, can you by chance spare some loose change?"