A poem from Mathias Svalina

Denver Post Readers June 2017 You are walking in the desert before dawn when you come to great pit. The pit extends as far as you can see. It is full of scaffolding & cranes & half-built skyscrapers & new condos. Workers in hardhats & orange vests rush about, lifting beams & digging trenches & welding things to other things. They are building a brand new city in the pit, a city of right angles & white paint & freshly cut stone. A city of tomorrow. Then the sun rises over the horizon & sunlight beams into the pit. Where the sunlight hits it melts the pitcity, the half-built structures turning into water, the scaffolding collapsing into puddles. They have built pit-city out of ice. They must have known it would melt when the sun came out. You decide to write a song about this, a song called “The Ballad of Pit City.” Before you can write the song you need to find a guitar. You walk down into Pit City, hoping to find a music store or a pawn shop, but all the buildings have melted. The workers are huddled in the shady edges of the pit. You walk up to a worker & ask where you might find a guitar. Not here, the worker says, not now. But you should try tomorrow. We rebuild this city every night once the sun goes down. You thank the worker & walk through the flooded puddles of the melted city. And who is this person walking beside you, carrying a bundle of firewood? It is enough to know they are a friend.