The Skyline

One morning I rode the express train on slow, old rails to Center City, Philadelphia, as it rolled up to a bend.

The train turned, and out the window I saw towering above poor West Philly suburbs,

rising over the horizon, almost surprising,

massive man-made mountains

of millions and millions of dollars worth of glass, steel and concrete sprouting from unseen Arch, Market and Chestnut Street and JFK Boulevard.

And this was the dark side of the moon. A godly sunrise was coming up behind these buildings, and I only knew it from the shadow.

It was blocked out by the skyscrapers and their tinted windows. Those thousand-foot tall sunglasses.

Every bone in my body told me to break open the emergency window before we reached sunless metropolis. I needed to jump off this train headed for darkness.