Red socks, green shirts, and yellow bears
A city once built by titans who honed their craft
Willams, Russell, Orr, and Bird; names once synonymous with greatness
Gone, mere memories, relics of what was
Embarked along the Charles, I turn toward the skyline
Wrapped in fear I am, to see a city quaking in pain
Buildings destroyed, sirens abound, helicopters serving (or protecting)
A downtown perpetually under attack
So I ask my guide, “what has become of those fabled streets?
The recipients of a battering ram at that.
War-torn that city looks, while on these shores we safely observe.”
“It will all soon click, trust me on this one.
That city you see is now merely a testing ground to train saboteurs.
Rioting, looting, gearing up for the day,
They enact these similar travesties on a scale one thousand-fold.”
“You see, the commonwealth was in a bind
The pulse of the city had gone deathly quiet.
So a desperate legislature put out a lease on city blocks no longer needed.
My dear Harvard stepped in, and then MIT
To create a playground for students with minds stuck in infancy.”
“The problems got worse, and the universities kept lending out money
Gobbling up street after street until they owned the whole downtown.
Every business has left the grid, and a once proud and bustling environment
Has turned into a tomb.”
“Now on your left as far as your eye can see
These are the perpetrators hiding behind their barricades.
A fortress fomented in avarice, with absolutely no time for scruples.”
I look to my left, aghast,
Full blocks of buildings ransacked,
Stripped of their New England stateliness, hastily replaced,
By iron and steel, drones all on the survey
A once proud neighborhood turned into a bunker
“I see nothing but Isengard, if you get that reference,
How is it possible to see these institutions
Fall into madness?”
My guide takes a second to wipe a tear from his cheek,
“it’s the vicious cycle of the beast,
It could not be tamed and grew unwieldy.
With the advent of access to intelligence, the universities got desperate
Unable to view themselves as anything other than early man’s voice of reason
Arrogant enough to think bright minds had their own agency
They doubled down on draconian doctrine and continued to push radical discourse.”
“Now Cambridge is all that remains in this once respectable city,
The University system completely in shambles
The highest bidders get in,
The pricing algorithm oh-so fined tuned,
Perfected financial engineering to justify their existence.”
“Sadly, there’s plenty across the world far and wide
With cash to burn, and a moral compass off kilter
To let their children be babysat inside this cold chrome chamber.”
Unable to contain himself, my guide weeps on a nearby bench.
I put my arm around him, hoping to offer some solace.
“I know your duty ties you to your city, but you must have heard
Of success stories across other places in the union
With new tech enabling swaths of people to discover their latent agency?”
“You know as well as I, the strength to do good is always inside.
The University had its run to connect those in likeness of mind.
But every dog has its day, and with new technology abound
Deep down everyone knew its slow death had already begun.
Even in my time, these murmurings were already happening,
“I’m sorry what happened to your Harvard, but if there’s a flicker of hope,
This fortress is a last bastion of a dying dialect, an icon, a monument.
I feel it, hope can still spring eternal, tell me Dear Harrison, am I right or am I wrong.”
He gathers himself and corroborates my notion, “but don’t forget,
Wherever there’s success a force exists out to destroy.
Newtonian mindset desperate to make life a zero-sum game.”
And like a jolt to my system, with an IV full of caffeine, I proclaim
“Find it I shall, even if I must scour all our great topography!”
He smiles, “that the spirit my boy, but please do remember
My statesmen true in their fortitude, and the negotiation I misplayed,
Dying on my own sword.”
Energized and optimistic we scurry west on the Charles
To an abandoned lot that contained
My one ticket out.