Well, worn masonry
Cimmaron square set with paste and algae
Dutiful to kinder and country
Served with quiet simplicity
With faith flaking a ruddy face
Bearing witness to a contract’s breach
Absentee care leads to rainy weeping
And glances askance by other parties
Clutched in fear with selfish concerns
Truer solutions are beyond one’s reach
Old and tired from a century’s work
Rest is the best rescission
In truth, expectations are nigh to nothing
When agreements are honored not
As time used to build one’s trust
Is never time prodigally spent
© 2013 by Corvidae in the Fields, all rights reserved
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Last Friday I ruminated on the building decay in town and how other people aren’t willing to step up to the plate to prevent urban blight. This is not advocacy for mandatory civic duty in as much as it is a candid critique of American operating philosophy.
As I see it today in 2013, people are not acting with the due care needed in public. We have romanticized individuality to the point of caricature. This caricature believes that it’s someone else’s responsibility to keep and maintain anything of public interest. If one’s name is not on the title or deed, then one is not responsible for any of it. Even if it is, action is debatable.
The easiest, and most visible, proof of this is the amount of litter permitted to lay on the roads and sidewalks of this country. New York City is atrocious about this, but on the other hand it could definitely use a revamping of waste disposal methods. Albeit a fruitless endeavor, I keep to a belief of picking up litter, if I see it. Yes, this means getting one’s hands dirty. Yes, this means worrying about a mess someone else created, but I do I anyway. Just because I didn’t create the mess doesn’t mean I’m scot-free to ignore it.
Another phenomena is the wanton development of a municipality without consideration to the existing infrastructure, resources, or body politic. It is understandable that some people in the community may be reticent to demolish the older buildings, but it’s really too late to save them. There’s a time and place posterity, but there’s most certainly a time to start anew. History is, and always will be, in the making.
Someday I may take pictures of Hooterville, but for now my poem will have to do.
Corvidae in the Fields 