Once again, Evelyn goes to every day objects around her and finds poetry. In this case, it is a famous landmark in downtown Detroit.
Moon Over the Fisher Building
All around me was silence,
And on the earth
I was the only breathing thing.
But the sky above me -
The sky above the dark, still earth -
Was loud with sound
And the sound was light.
Two towers of light
Alone like cymbals
Shattered the cacophony of silence,
And one was of gold that had blood in it,
And one was of gold that had been dipped in a star.
Blood and gold;
Blood is gold and gold is blood:
Vein of the earth,
Vein of Man,
Both bled and beaten and burned.
That weaker blood has swung you to the sky,
That divine, weak blood that is Man,
Blood that will be dust
Long before you are dust,
Though there is more than dust in it,
More that earth in it,
As Man is more than Man
And you are more than light.
Girders of steel sustain your height,
That one day must crumble.
The quiet trees finger girders of cloud
Sustaining the cymbal that has made you sing,
The cymbal dipped in a star.
The quiet trees are part of earth and sky,
Shadows now, and wordless,
Their green strings broken,
Their voices muffled in snow,
But in them no dust.
And in this cloudy light
No dust but a star.
Evelyn Coffey
Red sandstone, copper roof. Most never notice. some see the beautiful colors. Evelyn saw so much more, infinity really.
ReplyDeleteAs in High Level Bridge, she finds in her new city, Detroit, this ambivalent "progress" of the built environment, the sense of sadness for the shadowed reality of green nature. But here she finds color and beauty and transcendence in the Fisher Building, and not the bridge's "cavernous abyss."