An Urban Heart

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Abstract

almy evening ambling avenues with flattened curves to the sound of muffled traffic intermittently mingling in this million-peopled city feels normal after the peak/though life is much more subdued, even the cars gasp past/no honks just masks contorting a return to normality, and it’s usually quieter in the evening time — but this is a different evening time—an agony away, not mine. It’s almost nine and bright and I can hear my footsteps throbbing to the ache of a city’s wounded anatomy accompanied by the murmurs of voices seated outside restaurants and cafés in socially-distanced companionship amid a shattered urban soul determined to mend its broken heart.</p><figure id="5e6a"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*GLmqfJ5BjO-CuVoVQ

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INl6g.jpeg"><figcaption>Cologne/Germany, <a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/zK3D-2Kz2dw">Daniel von Appen</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/@daniel_von_appen?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></figcaption></figure><p id="f18d">When I wrote this poem I was describing the feeling I experienced walking through the city of Cologne one evening. It was a few days after the easing of the lockdown rules and people were allowed out to freely walk about again — although still in twos, unless family. It was the atmosphere. And though the city had had comparatively few deaths (96) and infected cases (2463), I felt this to be a general feeling world-wide. My thoughts were very much on New York and its pain.</p></article></body>

Broken

I have walked down many streets strolled past sundry buildings of sorts and watched lives ride by in all kinds of weather; inhaled the fumes and odours of scented bodies and metallic machines; heard music boasting from wide-open car windows/sure it’s not a pensioner. Now out on a suburban ramble I attune to the low mumbles of a balmy evening ambling avenues with flattened curves to the sound of muffled traffic intermittently mingling in this million-peopled city feels normal after the peak/though life is much more subdued, even the cars gasp past/no honks just masks contorting a return to normality, and it’s usually quieter in the evening time — but this is a different evening time—an agony away, not mine. It’s almost nine and bright and I can hear my footsteps throbbing to the ache of a city’s wounded anatomy accompanied by the murmurs of voices seated outside restaurants and cafés in socially-distanced companionship amid a shattered urban soul determined to mend its broken heart.

When I wrote this poem I was describing the feeling I experienced walking through the city of Cologne one evening. It was a few days after the easing of the lockdown rules and people were allowed out to freely walk about again — although still in twos, unless family. It was the atmosphere. And though the city had had comparatively few deaths (96) and infected cases (2463), I felt this to be a general feeling world-wide. My thoughts were very much on New York and its pain.