Streetlife

And one about the city...about the SunTree in the city!

STREETLIFE

StreetLife! Sounds like a song!
I live in that song
Central city, inner city
Get on the bus and pay my urban fare...
ride around urbania.

Back on the city streets
catch those smells
frying food, fragrant planted posies
whiff of truck exhaust
catch the signs
Sushi Special 4 NEW TIRES $100
signs and...the SunTree!

SunTree! say the word again: SunTree!
and again: SunTree.
Where? You just can’t believe this one
You didn't answer--WHERE?
right THERE--in the Financial District!
orange and yellow. It's all mine.
What? Mine. Claimed it the day it first transfixed
me
Now it's transformed me.

So today I'm hangin' out high on my urban turf!
Hangin' out street easy on these city streets
Left the rest of the world behind.
Gotta get a Szechuan beef with rice,
city taste.
Vanilla ice cream, city flavor...
and then...
Cloudburst! Sunshower!

StreetLife.
Listen to the city.
Home of the middle person, middle class
home of the people, yes the people
watch the people, again the people
people with a heart
You'll hear horses, crowd control
but traffic's quiet and sooo slow
traffic jams then the car horns go WILD!

Sky's heavy blue while the Earth's Star
BLAZES into the city,
beyond the city limits
glimmering off glass
overheating the pavement so it
rises up and hits you hot in the face
Hangin' out
On my very own urban turf

Then looking out my window into the street
below
Guys and Girls in Blue cruisin' by
Inline kids bumping and falling over each other
Here's my friend and we're up to the roof.
Freeway whizzing by with its usual whir
Lyin' on the roof to dream with my ghetto box
between us
Dream of tomorrow, out again on our urban turf
Both of us cityborn and urban bred...

© Leah Chang