THE CITY PSALMS

These are the orders, and the names of the orders, the nations and the colors of the nations, the life and the scents of life: the restaurant, the taxicab, the subway, the apartment and the window in the apartment, the trucks that deliver all things, and all the things themselves. The lights and the sound of the lights, night and the absence of the stars. These are the sayings.

To walk with your head back, so that you can see the buildings rise around you, is to reveal your throat to the world. By your throat you will show the color of your skin. And still, you change color constantly. Ask them when they come for you, What color am I now? Ask them, Am I good? Ask them, Am I free? Ask them, If this is not my home, then what is my home? And then you will lower your face and hide your throat again.

Your pockets are heavy with silver and gold, silver and gold. It slips through your fingers, no longer precious but cinders on the wind. And you think your tears are a response to the joy of prosperity, when it is only the sting of cinders in your eyes.

The old live high in the air and on the street, and the young live on the street, and in between are those who are no longer young, but not yet old. The sick live inside and the sick live outside, and not all of those who live underground have finished with their time. The wealthy, too, live high in the air, and the poor live high in the air. The poor live on the ground, and sometimes underground, and you dare not try to tell a man’s station by how he lives, or where: not even his neighbors know.

Who is rich and who is poor? The buildings stretch up into the sky and multiply into the distance, and who can count them all, let alone assign to them their kings and paupers, those preferred and those forsaken? Besides, what once were palaces are now overflowing, the people stream from them like kernels from a sack of corn. Do not forget that each provides its share of nourishment. The labor of each man is a full day’s labor, and each is a ministry—the nurse as much as the banker, the teacher as much as the talent, the dealer as much as the doctor, and those who do nothing but talk. Some of these are rich, and some are poor, but the city is one city. Each thinks that their city is the only city, and that all the others are pretenders, but the city is one city.

Is there no place in the city where a man cannot walk? Once there was danger on almost every road, and corners and sorties that only the most foolish or most daring would brave. Someday there will be danger again, but for now, every part of the city may be crossed. Go to the watchman and ask him, May I cross? Go to the watchman and ask him, Am I free? Am I free to go home?

If someone should say to you, Yes, you reply Yes or you reply No. But if someone should say to you, No, you do not reply. Didn’t you learn silence at your mother’s knee? She would teach you when to speak and when to be silent, when to get down on one knee and when to straighten your back, when to pay and when to be paid, when to steal and when to surrender.

Oh, that someone should hear me, and then come to me!

There are no children, but there are children everywhere: they appear in the afternoon and then vanish again as night falls. Where do they go? Only the children themselves know (some men say they remember, from the days when they were children themselves, and some women say they understand, but their memories are false, and their understanding is false). The children’s city is their own, exile from it is permanent, and then there is only forgetting.

How many children are there, aside from none? There is never one. There are very many, more than one man could count, even if he should spend a whole year at the task, counting from a January morning to a December night. They have a thousand joys and a thousand sorrows, and in time they will forget them all, but they will remember friendship. Thus as men and women they will have friends the way children have friends. Even those who have no friends have a million friends. At night you can feel the messages arcing over the streets and buildings as they call to one another, saying, I am well or I am restless, I am happy or I am sick, I am here, and here, and here, and here. Meet me, come and find me. Then you will go in the form of a friend.

Have you a master? — Well, then, have you a servant? You say no one is your master: then who are you traveling to see? You say servitude has long since been driven out: then who is that knocking at your door? And are you free?

There are those who fall in love every day—in the period between the opening of a subway car door and its closing again, on the corner, at their windows. They have coupled everywhere: in this bed and that bed, in stairwells and the bathrooms of restaurants, in the shadows of the streets at night, in public parks, in the backs of taxicabs, on rooftops. They walk the streets and wonder, Where is my love? Who was the last, and who is now approaching?

Where is your love? You cannot find her (him), not down the streets or across the avenues, not in the squares, neither in this room nor in that, in public or in private, in the daylight or after dark. Where is my love? You have ridden the trains uptown and then downtown again, and across, and you have waited on the corner, resting, and craned your neck to gaze up at the tall buildings: you wonder if your love is there.

There is danger on the corner because men congregate there: peddlers of vice, vendors of stolen things and intoxication, and all common and uncommon practices. They lurch and whisper, they call to you with promises, they want to steer you to a doorway, behind which lies the true fulfillment of each desire. You hesitate. You wait for a sign, and the sign will come—not the lights on the streets, which are false signs, but the glory of danger, intoxication, and noise, which are the true signs, and the only ones.

Go to the corner, stand on the corner, and open your eyes. What do you see? Is not all the world walking by?

Where do you eat when you are not at your table? And are you ever at your table? Those with whom you dine are not your family, and if these are not your family, then who is your family?

The city is a wheel, and within it there are wheels within wheels: the island is a wheel, the neighborhoods are wheels, and each block is a wheel. The waters, too, are wheels—from the largest river to the swirl of a drain. There are wheels on the cars, the taxis, the buses and the trains, wheels on the bicycles and the carriages, on the clockface and within the clock. Men and women have wheels for eyes: each citizen of the city mirrors the whole, and also their neighbors, who also have eyes.

The city is a clock, and the sun travels the canyons. There are shadows in the sky overhead; they pass and some of them are clouds, and you say, But look! And some of them are birds. But will they someday be bombs? And will they break the wheels?

The city is a shatter-box, clad in glass from head to toe. Everywhere you find your reflection, the reflection of others, and even reflections of reflections. There are lights on the other side of every pane, and nothing transparent does not glow. Some are windows, some are television screens, and some are advertisements, but all of them have people inside. Look at the people inside: some are tired and some are laughing.

I wandered the streets, looking for my beloved, but could not find her (him).

There is always someone angry in the next room. There is always someone heartbroken on the television. There is always someone ruined on the street. There is always someone shouting about their hatred. But you cannot offer shelter to the unhoused, nor solace to the injured, nor justice to those who have been denied justice. Not you alone. You will glow like a filament and shimmer like leaves in the wind, but you will never feel virtuous.

City of paper, of contracts and news, flyers and receipts, wrapping, tickets, bags and boxes, bills and ribbons. Every thought and intention, every agreement and charge. The birds carry them all away.

City of numbers, calculus city, postal codes and streets, the buildings on the streets, the floors in the elevator, the rooms along the hall, all are named with numbers. — Arithmetical city, where prices are divided by discounts, multiplied by tips and taxes, summed in barrooms and entered into registers. So you are quick, like electricity.

You city of remembering and forgetting. Everything will change: beloved buildings will be torn down and new ones built in their place, and parks will be planted anew. Politicians will resign in disgrace, museums will move, money will come and go. What once was gorgeous will come to seem tawdry and fake; great beauties will be buried, famous men will have their names erased. Everything will change: People will vanish, and those that stay will grow old.

But you will not change.