Oasis

Oasis
in the middle of the hustle
I breathe in,
letting air into my lungs.
And hold it,
while I look around.
There are moving people
swarming back and forth,
to the places
they need to go.
Sky gray and cloudy,
I slide my hand into my pocket
and finding comfort and warmth there,
I leave it
as I walk away.
Going anywhere.
As darkness falls,
I find myself
traversing home
alone.
Surrounded by silence
and neon lights
in the city
where quiet is a rare find.
The train slides by me,
and suddenly I am home.
Again.

poem

"The City"

You said: "I'll go to another country, go to another shore,
find another city better than this one.
Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong
and my heart-like something dead- lies buried.
How long can I let my mind moulder in this place?
Wherever I turn, wherever I look,
I see the black ruins of my life, here,
where I've spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally."

You won't find a new country, won't find another shore.
This city will always pursure you.
You'll walk the same streets, grow old
in the same neighborhoods, turn gray in these same houses.
You'll always end up in this city. Don't hope for things elsewhere:
there's no ship for you, there's no road.
Now that you've wasted your life here, in this small corner,
you've destroyed it everywhere in the world.

-C.P. Cavafy, translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard

Solitude, at last.
It seems that there is much to be done, yet at the moment I cannot bring myself to do any of it. I hope tomorrow brings some other sort of hope and drive to accomplish.