A New Dialogue

I yearn for a world emptied

To stroll through concrete kingdoms and

Hear silence reverberate against glass towers

No word spoken, no engine stoked

No roar of the crowd or screech of the wheel

Only the beaming blue expanse

Under the enveloping light that expels the ghostly past

It is in the silence after the storm that the greatest peace will be found

The great machine is the most impressive not in its furor but in the echoes it leaves behind.

Like the shattered windows of Pruitt-Igoe, desolate and transparent

Or the royal halls of Brush Park, battered and courageous

Grand factories stand in majestic rest after an eternity of toil

The dying of the refineries flame leaves glorious metal monuments

Barren freeways become sacred, and undisturbed playgrounds exquisite

Ivory clouds watch themselves in a wall of mirrors during the day

While rusting orange burns in them during the evening

In the profound quiet a new voice is heard

One that revels in that which was always there