Sometimes I look for grandeur in the canyons of the West,
but I prefer the man made canyons of the East.
I look to Bryce for the colors in the rocky spires but,
I look to Chicago for the colors of night.
Wide open prairies in Colorado carry the majestic open skies.
But when I moved west little did I realize how much I would miss, the rush and noise of the crowds, people yelling, horns blaring, sounds of life, much too rich and too loud.
Yet, maybe that's why when I close my eyes at night,
the silence in the West is overwhelming.
In the city I took early morning walks to hear the silence.
I dreamed of being alone with nothing but the sounds
of the crickets and birds.
The early morning gunshots in the ghetto of Gary, Indiana would break my reverie as I waited for a bus going to the steel mills at Seventeenth and Jackson.
An evening slumber without the symphony of truckers road songs playing in the distance on the never resting interstate was a dream,
yet I relished the banging of the train cars hooking up in the night, and the haunting notes of the locomotives blowing their whistles during a summer nights storm,
I love the smell of the trees and the grass after a gentle spring shower,
but when I see pictures of a buildings in the city,
I can remember the smells of the brick and the garbage in the alleys.
The museums flooded our senses with pride from the past.
A day of looking up would make our necks hurt.
At dusk the dark silhouettes guarding the horizon,
Would stand in a sky ablaze with reds and pinkish hues.
We would wait for the first glows of the roof top jewels,
signs flashing their neon blues.
I can still see the soft white globes of light making shadows play across the seats as we traveled down Lake Shore Drive,
and the shoreline lit up by lanterns as the fisherman dipped for smelt.
The Grand Canyon in all its splendor could not compare to the simple sight, the rare treat of Buckingham fountain all lit up in in the night,
splashing colors like rhymes in August.
Most of the old buildings are gone now their foundations filled in with rubble,
New ones built upon the remains of some ones dreams and memories,
But there is poetry in those memories and they cry out to be heard,
They won't let me go, echoing to never forget where you came from.
The joy, the love, the fears.....
I'll remember but for another time for I am through with longing.
They're saved until I can share them with you.
