Leaving the Stranger City (Poem)

Life inside seemed to shimmer and fade,
like koi fish in a pond,
flicking their tails, disappearing into murky weeds.
People vanished then reappeared,
smiling with sunshine,
then just as quickly flitting into frowns, twisted like broken thorns.
Stories began and ended with nothing and everything,
plots seemed stranded as the sand outside the city's walls.

"This is no place for a wanderer," the solitary man grumbled,
Kicking loose stones fallen from a looming cathedral,
a church forgotten in the shadows of the street,
windows and mortar broken like jagged teeth.

"I hear stories, see places and then they're gone,
nothing to put my finger on,
nothing to lean my head against,
ephemeral and permanent,
two worlds pitted against each other in silence and words."
"On the other hand," he murmured,
"this city is splendid for a split mind,
exit and entry both blurred,
city lines etched and erased,
soaring mountain hunched over in the background,
while a desert stands smooth sentinel in the front."

He shuffled and sprinted along,
Comfortable and fearful of not knowing what lay ahead,
what story might be erased,
which words might form on the sketch-board of his day,
or who might put their hand out,
and invite him in, just for a moment..."just for a moment."
After all,
no voice startles like the one you cannot hear.