Poem: March 21, 2019

Archeology

I like the spaces that run a little wild
or that persist in the gritty corners
of life, like the downtown Y that used
to be part of a high school, with its yellow
1920's yellow brick walls and edifice
that still reads "Gymnasium C.H.S."
I like late night laundromats and
rundown barbershops or any place
that still uses its original radiator,
the places you can find represented in old
postcards or black and white pictures.
I like the buildings that have legacy
ashtrays still built into the walls
and historic bars that haven't hardly
redecorated in the past century.
I like a place with some asymmetry
and a patina you can scrape with a nail.
Even our backyard with its chainlink
access to the gravel alley and the T-shaped
iron post that once anchored the clothesline
hints at the people who did their best
here before us. Those folks, and us,
and this plot of land since 1922. None
of us with the means to completely
change what is here or even maintain it.
We take our hand-me-down home
and make it our own with the occasional
coat of paint or ripping out of carpet.
Spend time a few blocks from larger
institutions and miles from suburbia,
just down the street from the big churches
and universities and government offices,
and you see the way the human tide
collects itself at the edges and under
bridges. You see the benevolent neglect.
Somewhere an abandoned bicycle
tells a story, tells a thousand stories really,
to anyone who takes the time to look.