The Next Block Down

Western Gulls sit in a line on the pitched roof of the old neighborhood temple waiting for the demented woman two houses east to throw bread out her broken dining room window with glee.

Crows in bare trees, on wires carefully avoid the opportunity for entanglement a pair of tied together shoes thrown up there by the gamer college boys across the street presents.

Somebody’s father who can’t smoke inside the restored tinderbox historic apartments sweeps the sidewalk with ferocious intensity that shows up the grounded crabapples next door.

Pink buds strain south towards the low winter light on the unruly camellia bush, ignore battered bikes, abandoned art projects in the messy yard it is trying to grow out of.

Serene, the perfectly painted in olive with two-color accents well-heeled four-plex on the corner shows her restoration with clean dignity as the roots of the huge mimosa tree facing her make their forceful way to China.

Quietly, the low slung house full of light, first library in the neighborhood, endures benign neglect from the active young couple who paid way too much for her at the very top of the market.

The heart of this small world resides in the proud yellow house built next to the temple for a non-Jewish caretaker who could then do maintenance on the Sabbath. Not showing her age to strangers she reigns…

Watching over us with good will and humor she would comment to anyone who knew to ask that life is about enjoying every moment we have and accepting loss with cheerful well-groomed grace.