Ground Level
Sept 7 2009


I felt manic, that day.
Or maybe some lunar phase
or alien rays
from the Kuiper Belt
that made me so restless.

So I set out
without maps, or direction.
The city looks different
from ground level
at walking speed.
I follow its steep descents,
dipping-down into the cooler air
left over from dawn.
I step into its street life,
spilling out of storefronts, noisy bistros
in Greektown
Little Italy.
And by a corner market
overflowing the sidewalk,
where the Chinese shopkeeper
guards his stalls.
There’s the smell of home-cooking
from narrow brick houses
where immigrants start out —
masala, souvlaki
cilantro, creole.
And behind closed doors
voices raised,
a girl practicing piano chords.

The concrete is hot,
asphalt even hotter.
Weeds push through the cracks,
and trash
accumulates like flotsam
in the lee of benches, garbage bins.
Which archaeologists will uncover
a few hundred years from now;
learning all about us
from soda cans
tobacco tins.

The walker’s geography
is all about the density of crowds,
the feeling of menace
on bad corners, back alleys.
Time is speed,
so the slower I go
the more there is of it.
And it’s not so much lost in the city
as losing myself here;
a flaneur
a voyeur
a fugitive,
just passing through.

Where I’m as invisible
as lines of gravity
or cosmic rays.
And feel I stand-out
like a comet’s tail
trailing sparks.
Like the full moon
at ground level.