Cobylstones

image borrowed from tess kincaid 

Cobylstones

“Outside of America, I should hardly be believed if I told

how simply Dover Street merged into Back Bay.”

--Mary Antin. 

There is just something

eerie-lovely

about cobblestone and brick

streets & sidewalks;

best seen at night,

wet with mist

or other liquids of the darkness,

best photographed

in black & white;

each stone,

each brick

a separate story,

another face,

another number;

like walking on the helmets

of thousands of terra cotta soldiers,

like pounding legos or lincoln logs

into the pliant earth--

getting harder to find in most cities,

except in some older alleys

or feeder walkways--

immediately transporting us back

to wooden carriage wheels, horse’s hooves,

vendor & junk wagons, wild wheelbarrow races--

astonishing abstract art to tread upon,

intricate, yet uneven patterns of polished stone

that rises up to meet your heels, never

just lying there like those great flat flounders

of granite/concrete/tarmac setts,

as unmoving & apathetic

as a bored spouse forced to consent

to conjugal duties;

almost alive, nearly animate, becoming

mad hatter checker & chessboards,

a challenge to all straight paths,

daring us to travel diagonally

like escaped lines on a Klee painting,

reminding us that life

is far from linear,

and that delicious madness

transferred to our soles

can liberate our lethargy,

shatter our shackles--

leading us onward

by stepping sideways,

backwards, in a circle,

or even leaping into the air

as our pedestrian travel

becomes a spirited ballet. 

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at Magpie Tales 201

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