The view from the Tenderloin

The View from the Tenderloin:
It's damp and chilly on this weekend morning, a good time for a walk. I cut through the neighborhood down to Market, down Market to fourth st., and then down to Folsom. I wanted to walk by the building I'm moving to next week, maybe just to reassure myself that it was still there, I don't know. Two point six miles there and back, then up two flights of stairs, and it wore me out a bit. I am, I need to remind myself occasionally, an old man of sixty nine.
Most blocks of Market have a cop car sitting in the middle of the sidewalk. Not sure why, there is very little activity. Just, as always, the dog walkers and the homeless, the most people I saw were waiting in line to get into Trader Joe's at Market and fourth.
The homeless. The people on the fringes of our society are always exposed during calamities. They are, in some strange way, heroes to me. Their stoic suffering, their vulnerability, touch me. They are at our mercy, and there seems to be little of that to go around.
“Why so unforgiving
And why so cold
Been a long time crossing
Bridge of sighs”
Hold those dear to you close.
God save the Republic