I wish the frigid, promised kiss of winter didn’t accompany the sun of these late-summer days
Because then I could just open my arms unconditionally to the golden, warm haze of these too-short afternoons.
Today I got off of work, carrying a basket of supplies to my far-parked car.
I smiled at the blue sky, gazed intently at the leaves–somehow with features-sharpened by the late-summer sun.
“Hey,” a young man with pants-sagging called from the bus stop, “You look nice today.”
I smiled but otherwise ignored him, walked past in my favorite green sundress of lace and soft layers and love.
I sent some of that love to the flowers growing and blooming and blessing from their sidewalk cracks:
Stalkly, delicate Queen-Anne’s-lace; yellow-on-yellow toadflax…each one loving me in return.
I caught up to a homeless man. We commented on the weather, he asked if he could help me carry my things;
I thanked him but said I was set.
I reflected to myself that that was a very nice gesture, then I heard him behind me,
“What I’m really looking for is some change…” and I shook my head and walked faster.
A few weeks ago I took my mom and my long-distance guy out with me on the byways
To visit the needy and homeless. He was struck by the homeless who said the city cared for them.
But, it does. And it cares for me too, I feel. It cares for me in the flowers from the sidewalk cracks
And the architecture, silhouetted against the ever-changing sky and the people who call to me, as I do them.
A security guard found my parking key yesterday, returned it to me today.
As I walked to work this morning, two people I know waved from their cars.
This city, my city, with it’s broken buildings and corrupt government and bleeding school systems…
And, also, the dear people with earnest dreams and prayers and actions.
I am happy to be a part of it for another day
To walk its streets again, snuggled by the golden sun in conjunction with the flowers.