FRIDAY, JANUARY 23SAN DIEGO IN JANUARY

Azure sky down to cobalt bay
to Coronado brown and green and gray and sand
tethered to the city by the arching bridge over blue channel.
A panorama of bustling earth
where the red trolley snakes around slab buildings
heading for San Ysidro and Mexico.
Sailboats slice the sapphire riffle
through a broad swath of shimmering light
past aircraft carriers stationary, waiting.
For war?

Traffic scurrying, tracing and retracing insect trails
across the grid of city between tower and bay,
animates, not dominates the urban theatre
where eccentric and curious buildings and people
move or wait to move, dreading the earthquake,
hoping for love at any moment, expectant, dreading
old still holding on among new,
The uptown shopping mall a modern sculpture
in a museum of older pieces.
Sunlight reflecting off windshields and rooftop clutter,
skyscrapers sheathed in blind man’s glass
push the reflected city back.

Energy and purpose and glee and wonder shout joy
where exuberant power masks the loneliness
and desperation of women and men who
cower, homeless, afraid, hungry, wishing for life or death.
A dozen flags, Stars and Stripes, stand sentry over all,
saying this is America