Author Description

This is The City.Clinging to the skirts or crests of mountain ranges or lying on the coasts and islands of the sea; gathered at the confluence of mighty rivers or sprawled in the midst of wide irrigated plains, from a distance of time and space The City whispers and murmurs to us. As we draw nearer these murmurs separate into individual voices. These voices take us to the crowded marketplace where chattering citizens retail the news of the day and their own personal hopes and fears. They are heard from the soldiers on the city walls and the shops where the artisans ply their craft. They drift out from the luxurious homes of the rich and powerful, and out of the alleys where the disaffected complain and plan their revolutions; from the churches, the wine-shops, and the bordellos. They are muttered into their beards by scholars like myself as they strive to comprehend, among other things, The City. And sometimes they cry out as nature rises up in fire, quake, or flood and reminds the city that it too is mortal. As we listen, we being to sense that all cities, from the most ancient to the most modern, are in some way contemporary. In the sight of eternity their citizens are not only our ancestors, but our brothers and sisters... perhaps our children. "I am polish man. I want be american citizen- and took here first paper in 12 June N 625. But my friends are polish people - I must live with them - I work in the shoes-shop with polish people - I stay all the time with them - at home - in the shop - anywhere. I want to live with american people, but I do not know anybody of american.""We were driven in the darkness to a huge building, and outside we started to play a love-song. Suddenly, lights came on everywhere. And in every window we could see the faces of nuns. The place was a convent! We were serenading a novice preparing to take her vows! Three times we went to the convent, giving serenades of 30 minutes each.""Baby, they walking in fours and kicking in doors;