for something different

I can’t stop
hungering for
something–
maybe everything

to be different.

Maybe it was the smog
I drove through late this morning,
drifting like gauze over
buildings which scrape the sky
but fail to bring our spirits
nearer to it.

I am disillusioned by
the grandeur I once felt at
the sight of these buildings,
I see the cold beauty of
their steel and glass and concrete

but I hunger for something
different. I hunger for the
inviting warmth of stone buildings,
like the old ones, before we built
so high that people on the
ground became ants

I hunger for the possibility that
the greatest modern-day
architectural feats will not be
accomplished on behalf of housing
a financial system that seems
to be dividing us further and
further from each other, ourselves, reality.

I hunger for something different,
please. I hunger for the melding
of genius and heart, technology and soul.

What love drives men to find ways to
fool others for the sake of making
an extra million?

What compassion allows us to consider
an oil giant’s falling stock prices while
creatures float in black death and fishing
boats are trapped at their docks?

Oh, I am hungry.

. . .