Commute (Philadelphia)

My city.

Mine.

A first returning glimpse of Philly always triggers 

a small tickling of the happiness

known as contentment.

My evening commute transverses the river,

my crossing view that of bridge over bridge under trestle.

I ride along the sleepy banks of the Schuylkill

as stately white skinned sycamores

lean over the river to gaze at their own loveliness, mirrored in the escaping waters.

Sweet Briar reminds me

to pause and take notice.

I gaze those 300 Sweet feet

under an echoey overpass

connecting the Drive to Lansdowne and for a moment,

myself to my father.

The boat houses blink their snowy-eyed windows

as I smile at them from across the water,

now resplendent in reflection of the evening sky.

The sky, the sky!

It is the golden hour.

The sky is painted in Maxfield Parrish pinks and purples,

But it is the skyscrapers who are most magnificent

Ablush with the waning evening light.

I zoom past those autos parked on the on ramp for 95 North.

I am grateful to live in South Philly.

I am not leaving

the city to go home.

My home

is here

in my Philadelphia.

Triplet colonial spinster sisters have their heads huddled together,

no doubt gossiping about me as I motor past.

I'm glad they have hunkered down,

Growing old here,

Proud of their working-man roots.

Two young ostentatious bucks flank these sisters,

out of place but precisely tuned.

As I alight in Penn's Port,

I am greeted by my neighbors,

comrades in arms which we take up

In defense of this small town that calls itself

Philadelphia.