City rise!
Draw towers from earth,
make roads and messageways
to find all those
who seek you;
dare them with greater heights,
to cast nets further
and draw the clouds nearer.
Light the night,
until you burn like a field of stars
in the crown of your doing.
Let noise burst forth
as song from a mighty water,
let voices sing and babble
in a million tongues bound
by you with brick and mortar.
Life stirs within you,
and the earth is forgotten.
You define season, time,
make epochs of transience,
give birth to the new and miraculous,
sing with the delight of your invention,
steam and exhale the dreams of millions
congregated in your streets,
your homes, your castles;
your never ceasing song cascades.
As the old falls, new rises;
each layer another melody,
unknown harmony, until now—
you reflect all that we desire,
all that we wish to be,
defeats, profits, triumphs, losses,
all find their home in you.
City Rise! Draw towers from dust,
lift us above ourselves
into your beating, gleaming heart!
Peterborough Poets 
I always kinda assumed that people who could write as brilliantly as this would be sarcastic, cynical people who had seen too much of the world and lost their last ounce of positivism as the cost of acquiring the holy grail of eloquence. (I also always thought that was a travesty.) But I was wrong. This poem was unapologetically empowered and bright, and the fact that it was written so impeccably gives me hope for the future of poetry.
This comment may sound over the top but I meant every word.
Wow, again — thank you — I always tell friends I know how to deal with insults but I am terrible at compliments — thank you, high praise indeed. Incidentally, my son and I both like the word topophilia — thx! (Wikipedia mentions its use in Bachelard’s Poetics of Space — one of my favourite books — if you haven’t read it — i recommend it.) Cheers!
I would surely check it out! Thank you. And you’re welcome! Cheers!