City Spirits

I was down in the financial district, a little before 9 this morning, looking for the location of a building i was sent to about a job. When i saw just this horde of people coming from the PATH station down by the world trade center. I was heartended. First, because i was so glad i'm not one of the masses commuting on the PATH. And second, because i was happy to see how many people have managed to hang on to their jobs. Because of all the construction, there were a bunch of traffic cops out in the area, & as soon as the lights turned green, they were blowing their whistles, waving their red flags like bullfighters at the lumbering buses & tailgating cars yelling "go,go, go!" Leaving the impatient crowd, who missed their sprint across the street, chomping at the bit.
It then turned out i've been going the wrong way for, like, twenty mins. So i had to go back down to Wall Street where the National Museum of the American Indian is located. This is one museum i've been really wanting to visit. And i'm going to try to make time someday soon. Anyway, I found this interesting poem on the legend plaque located in front. It captured perfectly how i've always felt about life in NYC. And considering the lost Native Amerian population of New York, and recent discovery down here of the Afican burial ground, it seems fitting.


City Spirits

Whenever I go to
the city I would
always feel a sense
of loss and a sense
of despair. One
day I realized why
I was depressed.
The Earth had
been trapped
underneath the
concrete and
steel. And it was
their cries that
I felt whenever I
came to the city.

By Wil Grant
(Anishinabe)