Above the City BY A L E X A N D E R L A Z A R U S WO L F The crows croak havoc havoc each dusk but the havoc they croak is silver-slated and glossed with moon—not the metrobustling havoc you face when sifting through citizens on the city’s sidewalks. Havoc should have an instruction manual. It should be found in the pockets of the skyscrapers’ window-washers or in the scent of fresh cement. And like the stray dog, havoc should live in the alley. O havoc, says the pigeon, is life. Those of us who stare from high-rises know the city’s sigh, know that a crane dangles above an empty foundation, a crane for children to gawk at, or for adults to complain about, or for the mind to ascend when it wishes to swing beyond the city to where clouds veil mountains; those mountains where your sorrow no longer lingers. And it is those mountains you must love, the hills of granite that undulate and sprawl to the beyond, where ether meets earth, where a thread of light sears the horizon and all that was once dark dissolves like water in the sun. You must love them
not because there is freedom in nature, but because the wings of the crows rise and carry them off to that beyond.
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