A City of Firsts

Once overflowing with,
the power of industry,
of cars and caskets,
confederations and cookies.

Once, the first utterance of,
“The United States of America,”

Like the locomotive, sighing
its clouds billowing into the wake.
A city chugging along toward
history.

There too must have been a first
to leave, a first to be forgotten.

Listen —

A jackhammer drums its beat,
the clank of cranes and scaffolding,
a shiver of ground underfoot, and
a cupola crowned by a solar halo.

Hear it? The whistle in the distance?

And so, with these hands,
that bend steel into sculpture,
that drag paint over canvas, and
twist dough into pretzel.

We build and we make,
and we shape and we grow.
With these words as the frame,
our spirit, the foundation.

We build and we rebuild, and
we tear down moldy dividing walls like doubt —
to stake our claim, to say
you belong here, and I, and he, and she, and them.

Listen —

The coal feeds the furnace.
Steam, gaining.
Any minute we’re cracking this thing
wide open.

Blowing the dust off its song, and letting it
spin and spin and spin.

Here, in the city of firsts,
makers and dreamers, entrepreneurs and
believers.

Chugging, and shushing, and chugging
toward something new.