Friday, May 7, 2010

Lightning Strikes the Tip of the Empire State Building (reflections on photo by Acme Photo Service July 9, 1945); finished poem

It was a time ago, when
I first opened a window to watch a storm rolling
past the city that never sleeps. Rolling
past the concrete monoliths and the over sized Tonka trucks.
The storm blew a hole, it cracked the sky;
a gaping fissure the size of a city.
The air shook, rattling closed windows and dark deserted alleyways.

It rained down heat and light in spite of the night
and despite the darkness, for a moment you could see men.
You could see men in their buildings,
men in the lights from their buildings,
you could see men in the street lights and the car lights and the black asphalt roadways.

When the sky split the crack ran the center of the sky
as if god was displeased with our ways
of building up instead of in,
of wasting instead of weaning.
But the men turned their backs from the light
and continued building with cold concrete,
continued lighting the world with dim, artificial lights
in spite of the night.

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