1.
The streets have been full for centuries.
Even if the buildings were to disappear
tomorrow, these streets would remain
filled end to end and side to side
with memories and with ghosts
and with the specters of memories.
In the dirt between the bricks
there is a memory
locked in stone and pebble
rubble and rabble
memory that filters down
and into the water
and from the water
into the dirt
and from the dirt,
it is rubbed into the soles of our shoes
and we remember again
all the things we didn't know
that we didn't know – comes to us
in dreams and in visions
and in visitations that,
if we're paying attention
will tell us the way
we are to go.
2.
So sit down here
and tell me a story
and make it a good 'un
like the one you told me
yesterday. Tell me
about one of the places
you frequented when you were
young, and fresh the fruit was
and how the women were sweet and ripe
and how clear and how cool
the water was and what it
felt like to really sleep,
to sleep out in the open
under the stars and what it felt like
to feel safe and to feel free
to feel something different
before all the fences and wires
and wireless was all built up
back before there were gate keepers
and invisible gates
back when you were my age
and the world was something more
beautiful than it seems today.