Sunday, November 12, 2006

Ramble from Phair

Yay! A ramble from phair....
I was stunned to read on a balmy middle of November night this week that my small portion of the cosmos was changing. Not so dramatically as protest worthy, to be sure, but enough to change my life in a small but poignant way. You see my worldly view, literally and figuratively, holds Boston at its epicenter. And, even though Boston seems to scream LIBERAL and PROGRESSIVE in the country's political arena, it remains deeply rooted in history. Our daily lives constantly work around the Boston which was, at first, part of the Bay Colony.

One could argue that the history of Boston is, in fact, the history of the United States. So many of our country's founders were from here or associated with our institutions of learning: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Samuel Adams (the man, not the beer), Ben Franklin was born here, Lincoln roots in the new world took hold in Massachusetts, and the current president graduated from Harvard University.

Yet, it's also a city eager to embrace art, music, and social change. My old neighborhood was the birthplace of both famed painter Child Hassam and Disco diva Donna Summer. The first and only Catholic president was born in Brookline. Kurt Vonnegut lived here and his son still does. In 1783, our Supreme Judicial Court ruled slavery was outlawed by our Constitution. Please note that's a full 80 years before Abe's proclamation which freed nobody. We do all the legal work and he gets all the credit but moving on... 220 years later in a second volley of emancipation fervor, our Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the state cannot arbitrarily prohibit the benefit of civil marriage on a person in an intimate, exclusive union with a person of the same sex.

With that kind of civic resume, you'd think I, as part of such a community, would be racing toward all change.

Shamefully, it's not the case. This week the Boston Globe announced the 79yr old Ritz-Carlton is being bought out by Taj Boston. The structure is an icon on Arlington Street across from the public gardens. It will be controlled by forces outside of Boston. It is a group of unfamiliar power brokers who can not understand the sweet combination of arrogance and innocence which shrouds the Commonwealth's people with unspeakable wisdom.

I do not care about who makes or loses money. But, I care greatly for the Commonwealth. And, of course, myself. You see, I wrote a poem which tried to capture the ugly beauty of the Ritz's barely restrained wealth versus my own poverty one very cold night. The poem was published in the print magazine The Aurorean in 1999. An internet search can't seem to find mention of the publication anymore. I retained my web-rights so I'll post the poem here for you to read.

Changing Directions

Walking down Arlington
toward Commonwealth
moonbeams twinkle
from one wrought iron
spike to the next along
the fences separating concrete
from the soft green of the public gardens
just one leap ahead of my footfalls
a couple is warmed
by the Ritz-Carlton heater
while waiting on a cab
I can never afford
to stay there again
passing, with a momentary
wince of envy,
I continue on my path

--Marguerite Mullaney, 1999

phair
www.phair1.com


Thank phair for rambling and enjoy those updates.

Tamara

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)