Urban Slave Beast

Urban Slave Beast, originally uploaded by skitbraviking.

Behind their cage,
yellow dinosaur steamshovels were grunting
as the cropped up tons of mush and grass
to gouge their underworld garage.
--Robert Lowell, "For the Union Dead"

For years now we have watched our great city gouged out, torn down and scraped clean by beasts like this one. For years now we have wondered, when will all this condo building end? When are we going to "hit the ceiling"? For years now we have watched the prices of real etsate rise up and the shiny sheen of "new," "upscale," and "luxurious" buildings blind us into thinking that things are getting better in the city.

I can't argue that things look better, but how do things look inside? When Italian tiles break much too easily, how will we feel? When the door locks fail, how secure are we going to feel? When we displace people who can no longer afford to be our neighbors, how much of a community do we have in the first place? When will we feel good about what can't be seen but only known? All things old have their own wisdom, but the glare off of everything new distracts us from seeing it.

If we keep going the way we are, we will be in the underworld.