Bushes bow

When I walk so small
on this city’s whitened walks,
down among its tall
gray-black caverns, all
around me, many colored
people, people of many
moods and many tongues,
the people with their buzzing
and singing voices,
yes this beautiful
wide tide of people
who push me forward,
as beautiful as they are,
tend to blend in until lost
to me. They get pushed
head first to concrete, the way
thirsty bushes bow
to splendors of a greater
wood, or the pebbles
lower their gobbled faces
before a reigning cliff, or
the way one marbled pigeon
trembles off coo-less
to a dot against a thunderhead’s
tumbling vastness. And I don’t
mean to belittle
the people, not one of those
beautiful people I walk
among, but my god,
can’t you see how this thirsty
bush looks up in awe
at those magnificent trees.