Reverberation

Palm in cupshape,

Fashioned,

Drum a sound.

Sound a beat,

Beat a rhythm.

Fingers dash, dash and tap

Breath,

Exhale.

Louder, louder, louder!

Pulsing, steady, harder,

Accelerando!

Panting, panting,

Gasping, but steady,

Hold steady!

Hold steady!

Silencio!

Tapping, lightly tapping;

Rising, calm

Trickle,

Like rain,

Beading, gathering,

Then streaming,

Blending

Into sound,

Into sounds,

Into beats,

Into rhythm,

Into me,

Into us.

Side Note on B-more

With rockets and bombs we have blast forth the New Year, 2008. Ripe with potential, and frothing at the lip of a full glass of champagne, this virginal calendar burgeons for us a new beginning, a fresh start. For Baltimore: The Greatest City in America, the New Year provides an empty page, and akin to a wash of Listerine, Baltimoreans are hopeful that this New Year will cascade through our streets, blast our beloved cat-sized rats from the alleys, and irrigate the innermost trenches with the motto of Believe.

Believe, the motto plastered to bumpers and billboards, and costing over 2 million dollars, was to perpetuate optimism among locals and ramp up tourism in spite of dire statistics. Did it? Does it work to Believe in Charm City? To “Believe” by definition is to have conviction, trust, confidence, dependence, and expectation. Nonetheless, words like conviction, confidence, trust, dependence, and expectation categorically contradict the Baltimorean mindset.

Instead, I believe that Believe was to resonate a more numinous definition, that of hope and faith. Hope and faith by association typically refer to something that hasn’t happened, may not happen, has yet to be seen, is continuously challenged, and potentially always disappoints. Within this context, Believe makes entirely more sense as our city’s motto.

Perhaps for you, Believe, or hope and faith are terms that you apply toward a lover, a friend, a son or daughter, maybe even God. Words like these are optimistic in tonality, romantic at the root, and vague in expectation. They insinuate that something could potentially happen, could potentially change, but at the current time has not. They refer to a blind state of optimism, an intrinsic, irrefutable love toward something or someone. These words ignite desire and passion; they elevate emotion, but unfortunately fail to deliver.

Year after year Baltimore fails to deliver. It fails to deliver 282 individuals home, alive. It fails to lower drop-out rates, to increase literacy, to increase affordable housing, to decrease homelessness, to lower crime, and to regulate honesty and integrity amongst city officials. At the core of Believe is a city of desperate, frustrated, and seemingly apathetic individuals suffocating amongst the cloak of impending statistics.

At the core of Believe is a city of stifled, intelligent, creative individuals who must arm themselves for battle, and for once put up a fight, carry it out, and make a difference. It is easy to rant discontent, to point out what needs to change. Baltimoreans are good at that, in fact I’m doing it right now. But, it is quite another thing to implement a direct course of action.

We need to organize an infrastructure within our city, with the sole objective to bring about change, start a chain reaction, and fight within the boundaries of a muddled system. We need an infrastructure built by the actual individuals who live within or around Baltimore, who are invested in it either physically, emotionally, financially, and/ or creatively. A culmination of talent and perspective needs to occur, and we need to unite as a city, in spite of our economic, racial, or educational differences. In 2008, we need to bring about change, and we need to bring meaning to the word Believe. After all, we paid quite a bit for it.