Surfing the Urban Aum

 
 Street of trees in the afternoon
frame of golden light
with a child
fluttering at the end of it
like some
butterfly into heaven
things like this
more often cross
your peripheral vision
if seen at all

 Sculpted concrete waterwoman
less a nose
pours her sorrows out eternally
into a front yard
bird bath
Never meeting Jesus
less fortunate maybe
than the Woman at the Well

 A corpulent balloon
rises
out of the city haze
basket absurdly small
dangling below
its swollen commercial bulk

 a small portrait of Mary
bleeding from the eyes
in the ground floor window
of an old house
on a bleak street
that slowly becomes gracious
as the blocks roll north
yielding a crippled dog . . .

 and patient, quiet acceptance 

there are times when you wallow
coating yourself
in the slow grey soot of this place
and you wonder
what it is
that church spires point at