The Dweller & The Baron

The Dweller & the Baron

By: Rohama B.

The City Dweller journeys around street corners
Collecting smog and cardboard
Constructing a house— a roof of stars, a pillow of willows, a bed of grass, a window of air and four walls of mist and cold winter breeze.
His entrails awake composing a symphony of hunger and despair,
Yet another day, another night, the miserable arithmetic of the calendar germinates into a mere fruitless day.
The City Dweller dwells in Shanghai. 

The Young Baron through the street corners journeys
Exhaling expensive smoke and discarding luxurious cardboard boxes
Deconstructing his house in search of a home—a dwelling place for his torment soul.Gazing at the stars, the smell of willows with Champagne, the grass beneath his feet and the broke glass—a sign of another barren night.
The window of gold and bronze protects his glass cage from the outside world and his four walls— is this the dwelling place he wants to call home?
Yet another day, another night, the miserable arithmetic of the calendar germinates into a mere fruitless day.
The Young Baron dwells in New York.

The nakedness of the stars shines forth in every corner and through every journey of every street.
The smog within the air travels through oceans and fills their lungs—from the Baron’s cigar to the City Dweller’s insides.
And the willows grow as the soil is toiled,
And the willows will wither within each and every morning, and the bed of grass and the champagne glass will decompose again into the soil.
The walls of the City Dweller and the Young Baron will crush down. 

For what can the Young Baron do for the City Dweller?
And what can the City Dweller do for the Young Baron?
Millions of footsteps away, their souls have yet to meet
The air brings them closer in touch, and far away do the ocean waves distance them.
Another day, another night, the miserable arithmetic of the calendar germinates into a mere fruitless day. 

For what can a human being do for another?
As far away, as when the sun swallows the horizon
Within the walls that crumble and the air that travels.
They are the rain and the naked stars at night.
They are one within one, When there in the sky their eyes secretly meet gazing at the stars.
The City Dweller of Shanghai and the Young Baron of New York—The ground upon which they stand is the same, the ground upon they stand is the same. 

“My convictions—I have a lot
My desires—far from none.” Said the City Dweller
And the Young Baron’s response “Take my convictions, a together we’ll have more.
Take my desires and make them yours.”
And they day came when they stood on the same ground and their harvest was not fruitless for together the soil they toiled.