In this concrete reality of busted windshields and broken dreams
Where lost boys had daggers for eyes and pretty girls with too much hairspray and eyeshadow, shook their goods in shorts too high.
Where demons Giggled like jackals beneath chemical colored street lamps
Ready to pounce on the unexpected and passive, and gentleness hadn’t much of a chance
Where the sound of fire trucks screaming through the night
Brought chills to the hot humid air
and the fear of shadows and rumor sent you running
when death was brought on by a dare
Where summers burned like wildfires raging
When tempers flared and bullets flied
And gangs of bandit misfit castaways languished
Marooned there angry, forgotten, high
Lay a secret garden of softened edges
Guarded by a woman of Maltese descent
Where one could find under a magnolia tree swaying
A bouquet of wonder, in every hue, in every scent
There amidst the cracked concrete alleys
Nestled between decay, brutal truth, and pain
Lay a square section of salvation so lovely to behold
You asked yourself ‘Did heaven look this way?’
There were pansies red, and marigolds so yellow
Snap dragons of every shade
roses bursting forth triumphant
Four o’clocks bloomed steady
After April showers brought forth the glory of May
It was an oasis in a drab grey desert
Where color faded in Detroit’s old broken down mess
The land was an estate of grandeur so vivid
Lorded over by a woman named Tess.
In the midst of Hobbes prophecy
harsh, brutish, and short this land of Urban decay
I’ll always remember that secret garden so lovely
Saint Tess of the Great Society forgotten
Whenever April turns steadily to May