i love this city-even when she was just a town
i loved her as she grew-with strapping roads
and spreading services
i liked it when she annexed territories-
her extra-territorial jurisdictions thrilled me!
i love her secrets,mysteries,complexities
i love the way you grumble about gridlock
without changing to adapt your patterns
i love the way heat is trapped
in every violation of feng shui
i even love your parking meters
(metaphors for time shared relationships)
i love your little lanes and alleyways
your caravans and trailer parks
i like to watch as real estate goes boom then bust
in cyclic patterns unpredictable
i like the way you ape others-
copying the worst of their fickle fashions
adding your local flavor(dispossessing poor and homeless
and making shelters into armed camps
i like your homeless Buddhist beggars
their friendliness and honesty
i like your cyclists /pedestrians
your parks/gardens/libraries
i like the way you appropriate public space
and make private property
i like the way you value yourself so highly
how you feel you embody history
i prefer you to the illusory "country"
(myth of nature and of distance)
where people carp and quarrel
yet never leave.I will never leave you ,city
you are my one true love-community
has always gathered in you(always will
until the end of all stories and civilizations
we will never be parted
never parted will we be.
we are history.
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