In the Tumult of the City

    
In the Tumult of the City
   
In the tumult of the city,
Where there’s rarely pause for breath,
Can we take some time for elders
Or for illness – or for death?

For it seems that in the city,
Where the money drives the time,
There's no space that's left for caring
Or for passion – or for rhyme.

And yet mothers nurse their children,
And the women nurse the old.
And there’s warmth and there is patience
In the city, bleak and cold.

You can see, amidst the hustle,
How the seasons take their time.
You can listen, through the bustle,
To the cadence and the rhyme.

There is singing in the city,
Though it’s muted by the roar,
Though the ones, who’re used to speeding,
Find the rhythms rather slow.

There is singing and there’s silence,
As there’s night that follows day.
What would singing be, if silence,
That’s at bottom, went away?

When you’re locked within a prison,
Then the silence drives you mad.
But the silence, in the open,
It can make a person glad.

If you happen to be walking,
When the rain has blessed the land,
Then the patterns, that are ancient,
You’ll begin to understand.

You can see the sky is clearing,
You can smell the dampened earth.
You can sense the life that’s breathing
And the ties of death to birth.

You might see the leaves aquiver
Or be still, in silent grace.
There is silence, in the city,
That we’ve rarely time to face.

When the cars, from streets, are absent,
When there’s quiet in the park,
You can walk, within the city,
As the daylight fades to dark.

You can sense then, in the city,
That attempts to hide the earth,
There's the planet, live and breathing,
That's the one that gave you birth.

In the freshness of the mornings,
In the heat of summer noons,
With the moon and stars at midnights,
You can taste of Nature’s boons.

In the tumult of the city,
You can watch the children play.
You can live and age and ponder,
And in twilight, fade away.

And you’ll know, that in the city,
As in village, forest, field,
Though a death may be a pity,
There’s a birthing it will yield.

2014 May 9th, Friday, 6:00 pm
Medical Office* of Drs. Paluzzo & Perlman, on 18th Ave near 82nd Street,
across from the New Utrecht Reformed Church, built 1829,
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York

*  I was there just for a sudden flu-like cold and fever, that started Wed. night and led me to take a rare day off from the school job today.