A city once full of hope and light, lays vacant and still as sounds past echo through our streets, our hearts and our minds. It is the song of a lone man. And so it starts soft, like the first light of a new day, slowly warming toward the heavens. And like a bird, takes flight over the buildings and through the sky, ever so delicate in its every move – each as graceful as its last.

Suddenly, the warmth finds what is left of me. It finds my soul, and reminds me of what I left behind. I see a place long forgot, and the world that we left. I see a house, old and weary, but full of character - a symbol of the old world. I enter, and find in the Kitchen my mother. She looks like a delicate lily and with every move she bends and sways in time with life’s absurd rhythm, and indeed each movement betrays her love and her humanity – something we lost long ago.

The wind stirs me – and I look up. The vision before me is gone, and in its place I feel the tiredness in my bones. I see the water beside me bend and spray as Mother Nature’s breath contorts the environment around me. The black river slowly running away from this city, and in doing so away from man’s problems.

In the distance, the Cathedral bells chime and join the lone man’s song and the winds of time. All as one, balanced and finding its place within me, and within the heavens above. Ever building to its climax, a crescendo in Mother Nature’s symphony. And then it stops.

Silence.

I close my eyes, my heart, my soul, and join the rest of the world again. The song is still here – but it falls on man’s deaf ears. Its dulcet tones lost on our people, yet they move with its pulse regardless. It is a beautiful thing, this equal music.