::03:13:08::

::: From South to Norte :::

It must have started from the far south

Blowing softly threw the cluttered streets heading north

Breaking stride in the lumberyards and mills of 63rd Street,

But then quickly recovering and blazing threw the shadows and

Damp alleys of Chinatown, to Pilsen, to the ghettos of Bridgeport

Where crippled faces stand grim over angry games of dice

While the poor trade their dollars for cheap wine and amnesia

Leaping up threw the sky it watches over the children

In the otherwise abandoned courts of Halsted and Jackson Avenue

Tossing balls at midnight

Until it is quickly flown into the brownstone walls where it is held

For nearly three days until finally escaping to the bustling Downtown streets

Of inner Chicago

Where the sidewalks are still stained red from the riots of ‘68

When the mobs threw spoiled eggs and bottles and bricks at the Pigs for peace

Still going, after being hit by three cars, kicked by ten people, and drowned in four rains

It rises

It rises and shadows the eyes and blots out the sun of 3 million in one fleeting burst of divinity

As it passes high overhead

Skirting the buses and cabs it makes its way out of the blackness of buildings

To the flats of lower Lakeview where it is dragged and battered for over two miles

Under the rusted frame of an old Cutlus Coupe, burned slightly

Until resting on a rooftop to stare at the stars

Long enough to wish on every one twice

Before leaping seven stories to be tumbled threw dusty lots and jagged ends,

Pushing its way threw the daylight

Blind aspiration in the summer sun

Crashing and barreling down lonely roads and narrow alleys

Til it is blown like an eyelash to Western and Leland Ave.

Where it rested happily for two years under

Two lover’s sill

Until each forgot how to love

Each other

And all parted ways in mid-July

Again to be thrusted into walls, past the dead of those that came before

Now shredded to nearly nothing, burned and torn

How death accepts the willful just the same

For thirty-one days it is lost from sight- a transparent ghost

Until it appears suddenly from the empty twilight tragically stuck strange and flickering

On a chain-linked fence

Weathered and worn, yet still fighting violent

For its freedom to fly in the winds to come

Written by: ~ Jacob John