Citiness
No longer
do I enter a city.

I enter citiness.

Atlanta, San Francisco, Los Angeles, St. Louis,
Barcelona, Seattle, Vancouver, Toronto, Chicago,
Melbourne, Roma, New Orleans, New York, Cincinnati...

Each time there is the drama:
The nucleus, the city centre,
appearing in the distance.
The thrill of its power.
Some internal cheering
for its thrust towards the unlimited.
Some satisfaction, and yet a wish
for even more, for true Unlimitedness.


Sydney, Australia area

An archetype:
once an American one,
now the world's.

The spires thrust up.
The eye, restless,
climbs in a glance.
Could these be the tallest towers in the world?
How many of the highest ones are clustered here?
Count the towers, count the floors.
The eye, perhaps the child within,
compelled to find out.

Closer, closer to the mighty hub
finally entering its labyrinth.
Find a place to stay,
or the place already booked,
or a place to live.

Put up your stuff
and go walking.
Beauty on every corner.
The unplanned juxtaposition
of angles, a mighty protean sculpture
changing as the viewer moves,

Sometimes, a tower in a checkerboard
of pastel colours.
Sometimes, abstract images etched in the rising glass.
Unending variations of architectural imagination—
so long as they serve the current vision of urban (wo)man.


Street art in Melbourne, Australia

The city centre is a dynamo, a cyclotron,
appearing still from a distance, concealing
a citadel of unruly becoming.

Think of all the uses of cities:
walled fortresses for protection;
consolidations of energy and culture,
wealth and trade.
A teaching machine for children,
immigrants and those from the hinterlands.
A vision: "from each according to his
ability,
to each according to his need."

And the failure of that vision;
the people camping in the streets,
reaching out with indicting or deadened eyes.

One's self in so many forms,
one's path in so many winding or rushing lanes
simultaneously moving in every direction.

The city, a mandala,
tranquil in the early morn;
restless in the afternoon.
Its becoming consumed somehow,
in thought, in the echo
of a deeper Peace.

«RELATED READ» THE WORLD THAT IS THERE FOR US: Reflections upon returning from a spiritual pilgrimage»
images: Max Reif

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