Dumb and mute...
with no smile of pleasure,
nor the cry of pain,
no action to react,
standing perennially...
never to sit
only the face of man,
have you?
a heart...?
a smile...?
to cheer...?
Generations call you gateway to the city,welcoming all..
into the heart of the city,
Welcome...?
welcome without a smile..?
Generations call you pathway from the city,
saying goodbye to all,
Goodbye...?
Goodbye without a tint of sorrow...?
I call you a dumb, mute statue..
Suddenly,
a murmur,
a chiding whisper into my closed ears...
'I am mute and dumb, no, blind too..
or else how could I stand here,
watching the city day and night,
cries of the penniless, shivering in the cold,
'colored' shades of segregation ringing in my ears,
putrefied fat of the rich and glorified,poisoning the Cuyahoga,
blackening smoke of dignified pretense-
clouding the tallest mansions,
painful cries of unborns,
shattering the conjugal nights,
divorced parentage,
tearing the filial love apart-
three days a week to the womb that mothered him,
three days a week to the man that fathered him,
with a day redundant.. the seventh day..
drugs and crimes, lazy orgies..
Lady of the city, trampled down,
object of pleasure, means to the 'market'
I see the good and bad,floating over Cuyahoga..
the good washed away, the bad sedimenting by the side..
fertile soil, greens appear,
bucks and bucks, grow up there, fruits of that sedimented soil,
All I see ..day and night..
But with a heart of stone,mute and dumb,
blind to the suffering,
I survive years to come..
But I am better than you ,
man of flesh and blood,
pounding heart that thrives on emotions
yet, dumb and mute,
as rock by the wayside.'
Oh! the mute witness to the city,
my heartfelt salute....
(As I was standing on the bridge over the Cuyahoga river, near the twin towers at the gateway to the city, on the 23rd of feb. 2008, I called the towers 'mute and blind'. And this was the reply I got)
