Not much bound by physics, you dealt primarily
in conceptualization. Yours was the trade
of dreams and visions-- a Joseph who saw
monuments bowing down. You wielded

your drafting tablet like an oracle with
her bones; you adumbrated the futures of
our city streets and tenement houses.

Through mystic, fired eyes, you sheltered
our children with broad strokes, and detailed
the interstices as though waterproofing
a leaky raft. The need for deliverance

pushed you, feverish, into skyscraping
rituals-- less space to ply your trade meant
you were cramped, yet frantic to be noticed.

In a frenzy of limb-motion and perspiration, you
demanded blessings from the gods, but your people
had carelessly forgotten you; your prophecies
languished in unheeded volumes.

Civilization, that unforgiving beast, had broken
its time-worn leash. Your spells and T-shaped wands
were unmagicked,  and your epistrophes expired.

02/24/2004

Posted on 02/24/2004
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