Crossing I-94

(Inspired by Walt Whitman's Crossing Brooklyn Ferry )

O train tracks of the light rail! I see you before me; I see you stretching to the west, stippled with the light of the street-lamps, piercing the softly settling shadows, O passengers boarding in multitudes, I see you and am among you; the culture and convictions you clutch so closely I clutch as well—everyone of us holding on to something, some of us holding on to everything, all of us holding our breaths.

The fatal course of the future, the small truths that bind us together, Bridging the chasm between us with fragile heart strings; Bridging the I-94 that split us down the middle like a scar at the slash of a whip, irreversible and untraversable, some fifty years ago.

O mournful houses collapsing, I think I can see you there some fifty years ago, falling to the ruthless crane and the steam shovel; The straining back of all America, home, cut by cold concrete and stone. I am there among you, crying with you, O families displaced, as the first car drives through.

Red, black, and blue: those are the true colors on which America was built. Red, black and blue: the colors of the bruises on the back of the slave. Red, black, and blue: The police cars and the sirens that blare day in and day out. Red, white, and blue: the colors on the flag we fly.

But you there! Man in the high crane! You too are one of multitudes. You too know injustice; Join us here, in the rubble, and standing together, shoulder to shoulder, let us bridge the chasm between us, Standing together, perhaps we can patch up the wounds of ages past, Standing together, shoulder to shoulder, by the light of the street-lamps and the sirens, and the softly setting sun.