The Art of Stooping

There is a place
america
once sat - before
the advent of the television
microwave high-rise
antisocial society
of today.

In country villages,
towns and cities, folks
gathered in the dog days
of summer afternoons, gathered
on spring and fall evenings,
to talk.

Talk politics, to make business deals,
to counsel each other, to swap
human information - tales
of family pranks, tragedies,
and woes.

The hardy amongst us
gathering even in bitter winter
winds to trade smoke
with debate.

All these things - we talked out once -
before the isolating bottling up age
of today. Crawling into the safety
of our concrete trees in city jungles
hiding behind our screens, feeding
the daily dose of radiation.

What
have we lost?
The place.
Where
is this place?

Right outside your door -
in neighborhoods not yet
over-run with the human weed
called condominium and high-rise
apartment. Right outside
your front door.

Would you reclaim your culture? Not just
to say, not just to think, but to do?
Do you want to -
really want to?

Then look outside
your front door -
rediscover the stoop
you so blithely cross daily -

Rediscover
The Art Of Stooping.

_{(Inspired by a talk on stoops :: 2010-09-18; 05:28)}