(I wrote this in a quiet moment during a week-long
"alternative spring break" service-learning experience for USC
students, for which I'm the advisor. We're in Salinas, California, staying and working at the local manifestation of The Catholic Worker - here known as Dorothy's Place. Every day we prepare and serve food at its soup kitchen, work in the organic garden associated with it, visit farm laborer camps, and visit agencies that serve low-income people in the Salinas Valley. Dorothy's Place is located on Soledad Street in a former bar in Salinas' decaying Chinatown district, north of the railroad tracks beyond the
center of town.)
Soledad Street
Can I catch a whiff of burning joss sticks,
a whiff of better luck,
Through the stench of urine sprayed
against the broken bricks
along Soledad Street?
Can I hear the fading bong
of a gong
still ringing in the air
around the rusting sign
of chop suey memory
That keeps us down
On Soledad Street?
It's user-friendly
Cars pull up for curbside service
And men gather for a "Colt-45 rotation"
Sharing swigs and stories
in the shade of "Suey Sing"
Solitude together
Dealers in sunglasses behind tinted car windows
Communal loneliness
of a soup kitchen line
The "soledad" of stories with holes
where dreams ought to be
Vacant lots between remaining teeth
revealed in telling smiles
buildings extracted
from a fading Chinatown
Who can afford the dentures to fill them
On Soledad Street?
Everyone sees the sleeping bag you carry
but you still have to sleep in it
alone
On Soledad Street......