Closed-In

This day in the deep country, the sky it is high, blue, and vertical, with no hand holds, nor anything for the eye to cling to. In the city we don't get 'big sky, we get pencil thin rays to sweep our dusty ledges, we have elevations where the sky fades to gray on viewless windows. Far below, down on the hemmed-in streets a few trees, stretch, reach like mountain climbers, In the ghetto, doors clutch at pidgin cluttered roofs. Mostly we give no thought to the sheer narrowness of it all; how the city closes in on itself. it's no wonder some choose to leap, rather than foot-slog up an ever-descending staircase.