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"...and you can feel the longing"

Night in the City It is night in the city and the light is bright But shadowed now and not quite real like how you feel When you have been burning the candle at both ends And what end do you hold on to? Well that depends On if the center holds and what is holding you Night in the city of the living and the dead Who when living were dying then to get ahead But neither here nor there they found themselves nowhere And having gone too far now wonder where they are But I am living here in the city instead Night in the city at one time was so pretty But one time looks a lot like another time now When there have been too many times for me to see Witnessing firsthand the unfolding of always And overhearing what the disappointed say Some of them say the city has gone bad or mad And then some say the city is not what it was As it is what it is and it does what it does While others say the city has seen better days And yet what day is better to see than today? But other times and other places interpose Memories of other times and places like these Between what was and what will be at what is now Having been and seen too much I remember those Things you might have remembered to forget somehow And it interferes that some of my heres are there And that some of my nows are then now and again But I suppose remembering those is just what I must do and if not forget then at least not Regret what I cannot forget at least not yet But when my heart is always I am everywhere And this is the higher me to which I aspire Passing time through space to a sense of place by grace At the center of the universe wherever I find myself to be so I find myself free When night in the city is pretty forever With its elements of earth air water and fire Reconciled in balance as its seasons revolve Belonging the city belongs to us because We and the city are as one as we evolve And though the city is a place of belonging We are lonely by nature and lonelier where So many people are with so many needs there Being met and unmet in close propinquity Night in the city and you can feel the longing I dream back in time to this place and remember The beauty of the duty of the people who Built the city for one another to be in Back in the May I remember in December As what ends in the city brings what to begin Things I forgot to remember about somehow Since one time looks a lot like another time now But this looks like as good a time as any to Stop dying trying as the living dying do And not try anymore at all but doing be I want to be the higher me alongside you Because night in the city can still be pretty When we are the living and it is our city Along the way to how between nowhere and now Into the center of the universe and why Night in the city of the living and the dead Is here now as our time to live and not to die We are living tonight in the city instead It is night in the city and the light is bright Night in the city of the living and the dead +Steven Curtis Lance Copyright MMX