Sunlight & shadow on Alberta Street

Sunlight and showers take turns 
telescoping a day's weather
into a few moments

Exchanging lightness and dark in the afternoon.

PDX grows on you the same way,
fast and slow
attaching itself to your emotions

with subtle if sometimes tattered charm.

Out of the grayness, for example,
a dogwood's blossoms shine like a bubblegum-tinted painting
on black velvet

at a roadside stand.

a dilapidated building, surrounded by chain link
its windowpanes broken
and its walls beginning to waver

weighed down by layers of graffiti 

still has a certain dignity,
surrounded by a tangle of new and old
an apartment complex under construction

while a nearby restaurant is shuttered, windows shrouded in butcher paper.

Alberta Street is like this
in flux but calm
sunlight & showers mingling.