Buildings and Monuments and Neighborhoods

The Buildings, Monuments and Neighborhoods

are the biographies and Diaries of a city.

And the residents are the authors.

I sit in the twilight of a new Dawn

And watch the skeleton of a new edifice rise from the old city streets

The Floors, columns, girders and beams made of thinner concrete

and even thinner steel than in my day.

It seems like these "disposable buildings" are not built to last.

Use them for twenty years then throw them away and build a new one.

When I grew up I knew men who had suits more than twenty years old

and they lived to see them come back in style.

Such suits were still of a better quality than the ones made today.

I'm not saying all that was made before is better than now,

but there is a sense of the strength and permanency

in the hearts of the people that is reflected in the things

which they build with their hands and

in the way they use and care for them.

This why I say the people authors

and the buildings the biographies