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The outline of the city the sheerness of its height, I thought that I was kidding when I said I love this sight. I love this skyline, towers rising from the trees, white bars on a blue graph not exactly flapping in the breeze.
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alamy

Dedicated to human kind's gift to envision and build.

"The Empty City"

The outline of the city

the sheerness of its height,

I thought that I was kidding

when I said I love this sight.

I love this skyline

towers rising from the trees

white bars on a blue graph

not exactly flapping in the breeze.

Cast upon a great white plaza

filtered down through architects' maps

a stand of glassy super-structures

rising from the sprawling city flats.

Streaming to the blue sea (I mean sky)

gleaming like beluga

reducing to teeming atoms

and shimmering in the heat.

Hope you have your camera

hope you have some paper

because if no one gets this down

then it's gone forever.

This is the elevator

I press all the buttons

every floor is different

a different number anyway.

The marble in the lobby

the silent corridors

is this the new church

out of which... no one pours.

I feel I'm rising higher

I must be in the clouds by now

I knew it when I saw it

I picked the right office tower.

I feel I heard it lift off

break away from all the rest

lifting its great heaviness.

Hope you have your camera

hope you have some paper

because if no one gets this down

then it's gone forever.

Strange when I think about it

well, that I should write of birds and flying things.

I always tried to avoid it

reminds me of dumb girls and bad poetry

well -- I'm not perfect.

I don't know why it moves me

maybe I'm going to die soon

a secret known only to

known only to not even me.

I want to live forever

I fear maybe you don't

I fear that I will lose you

leave me here to carry on alone.

That's why I'm not that surprised

that one has broken away

has lifted from the silent earth

and carried me away.

Hope you have your camera,

hope you have some paper,

because if no one gets this down,

then it's gone forever.

A crystalline set of dominoes

except not really crystalline

and sort of domino-like

but not really.

Life is a tall white building

lifting from the silent earth

it's carrying a message

carrying it away.

From Jane Siberry's "The Speckless Sky"

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