Seattle is a house
Perched
on the comings and goings
of water and wind
ripple of fish
feather of crow
early morning ferry yawn
Seattle I say
and invoke a man and a place
the two inseparable
not proportional
not parallel
but as language
is to poem
and salt to sea
I watch bridges, bicyclists, boats
summer blankets tendered
on public lawns
I watch fiery sunsets
tango and sway over jagged peaks
and autumn trees bursting gold
up and down hilly streets
Nevertheless before
I postcard and gloss
and more sunsets
and more trees
find their way into my lines
I must confess
the house’s foundation
is in places brittle
and many rooms dark
for windows lack
Plenty have I been
on the receiving end
of rehearsed indifference
heard enough shallow
arguments on who belongs here
to wake up scooping
ocean water with a spoon
we are all here
that need to be
The city is concrete and steel
plus the sum of its people
everyday we destroy
our house
then race to remake it
those narrow windows
block future’s view
mute voices
that need to be heard
muffle the sound
of the fallen tree limb
heavy with ripe plums
Everyday we tread
over Chief Sealth’s legacy
his prophetic words,
“At night when the streets
… will be silent and you think
them deserted,
they will throng
with the returning hosts
that once filled them
and still love this beautiful land.”
We are not alone
save for his people
we are all immigrants here
waiter, teacher,
artist, worker nurse
we belong
all of us belong
Seattle is a house
we all need to afford.