Is it really gentrification
if nothing real was there beforehand?
It still must feel that way to whomever
spraypainted "Lucky" on the first-floor wall
of new apartments on Chestnut Street.
As much as a contemporary house
replaces and displaces neighbors,
this block of flats upends what came before.
But was a waste land really worth saving?
Nostalgia lays no claim to empty lots
except to mark the passing of time
and of batons to new arrivals.
They won't remember the closed foundry
or the long-shuttered textile mills
or the stench of chicken processing.
It is always that way with new things—
the pasts they ask us all to forget,
the habits they demand we forgo.
What must die for a gift to be wrought,
for anything good to come and last?
What do we lose by changing too fast?
What do we lose not changing at all?
love this:
It is always that way with new things—
the pasts they ask us all to forget,
the habits they demand we forgo.
"Lucky" them. Thanks for sharing!