A city by the river, a city of brotherly love, the skyline stretches the length of the river, mostly white lights and some reds and greens in the distance. From our vantage, a grassy turf shrouded in darkness bordered on our left by a forest patch of trees, music at high frequency plays from jarring speakers, young people sitting in the grass as fireflies pop out of the grass like embers from a fire. The quiet talks of young lovers and the brash speech of young punks drunk and lying on the lawn is seldom. The mood is complacent. I try to capture the city in my iPhone camera but the darkness and distance reveals a blurry photo on all occasions, the essence of the city escaping in tiny pixels. A moon lights the smudgy clouds above, they sit in the sky sunken and heavy, wet and moist. A rain has fallen earlier, a storm has passed. These remnants of a previous age float ominously, suggest a doom. But the city sparkles from this distance and from decidedly low vantages that provide a suspension of disbelief, as the city twinkles off the river, the fireflies spark out of the grass, shooting stars, shy fireworks, that rise above Philadelphia.
Ashish Seth
Ashish Seth 