community – Page 17 – sunrise in a small city

connecting neighborhoods

shipbuilders and merchants
begin the federation
of common universal convenient active
places.
to live
and buffer adversity

cobbles at sunrise — (80 acres of fells point were annexed to baltimore town in 1773)

pillar hall

in uruk or harrisons marsh
butchers meat and other commodities
grains
fish
horses and humans
sundry goods
on wednesdays and saturdays.
public assemblies and dances and travelling shows.
jugglery

traffic at sunrise — (in 1763 a lottery was started to fund the building of a public market house near baltimore and gay streets)

people are
the land
trees
and animals.
brooks and babin and alexander
denys and doiron and brown
glode and gauterot and oliver.
refugees scatter in place and time
from land claimed by princes.
who would not annihilate can help build an alliance

alley at sunrise — (in the mid-1750s acadians fleeing british persecution left nova scotia and re-settled in colonies to the south, many around what became known as french alley)

back inhabitants

horse, cart, and wagon
clatter over the public bridge
between meadow and marsh
over the stream.
from west and north and east
spinners and weavers, tanners, millers and brewers
barbers and tailors and shoemakers
coopers and wheelwrights and carpenters
butchers and bakers
laborers.
midwives

freeway at sunrise — (jones town and baltimore town, connected by a public bridge over jones falls near gay street, merged in 1745 and were becoming a center of activity for colonists in counties to the north and west)

from glasgow or leeds

wanted
to go to maryland
a young man unmarried
a blacksmith
a young man
who understands latin, greek, and mathematics
healthy young men and women
will meet with good encouragement and be well treated on board this vessel
six healthy men that understand farming
they must be sober and accustomed to labor
girls over eighteen years of age
who are unable to pay their full passage
will be assisted by a gentleman living in this country.
shall serve according to his/her power, wit, and ability
and honestly, orderly, and obediently
in all things demean and behave.
will be led to understand the meaning of life
and his/her place in it

suttton place after sunrise — (indentured servants signed contracts before emigrating from britain and joining the colonial workforce)

tide covered with froth

along the shores
hunters came
killing with stones
and harvesting,
always walking.
settling where fish teemed,
cultivating and weaving and potting
carving and tanning and painting.
andaste were hunting to the north of this backwater
when a lone shallop
rose on the water with the sun.
and slipped quietly past

cove at sunrise — (humans ranged into the patapsco region more than 18 thousand years ago as the glaciers of the last ice age, which had reached northern pennsylvania, were receding–indigenous people were here when captain john smith explored the region in 1608)

empty streets

the street was mostly empty outside the warehouse,
parking meters painted white
skeletons of bicycles
broken glass,
waiting for you to come out.
five young men walked past and up and across the street
a full beer can arced and thudded on the pavement
before they got in a subaru and drove past me going south.
a civic with a broken muffler drove north very slowly.
a small rat was coming out and going in a hole in an old loading bay door.
finally you came out
and we hugged for not long enough.
i slept through the sunrise but so did you
though you wanted to die inside that warehouse and almost did.
my satisfaction with each sunrise
is just an echo of the joy of the morning you were born and the times when we are good.
i want my love and desire for you to ease the pain enough for you to stay.
please don’t leave

dorm at sunrise — many industrial buildings have been re-purposed as living space for people choosing to live in the city–the former maryland hospital for women is now a maryland institute college of art dormitory)

Category: community