City of Light
April 11 2008


I have never been to Paris.
I do not know if it rises up, unexpectedly
from low stone buildings
crowded onto narrow cobbled streets.
Or stands, on its own
at the far end of an open field of green.
There are more ancient monuments
and grander ones, as well,
in boosterish new world cities
like Chicago, or Shanghai
that swagger with sudden wealth.
But they just remind me of rich old men in Ferraris
which still have that new car smell.

But this is unmistakable,
an elegant confection of light
that seems airborne, almost dainty
on its graceful sweeping legs.
All deception, of course,
the art of concealing its art.
Because up close, slowly ascending through its geometric form
the tower is a great brutal lattice
of massive iron struts
and bolts as big as Volkswagens.
It stands, immoveable
a triumph of 19th century technology,
whose Victorian engineers
believed in building forever.

And useless, too
— going nowhere,
wide-open to air.
An act of sheer exuberance;
or, perhaps, man’s hubris,
flaunting his cleverness and wealth.

Paris in spring,
as if I’d actually seen it.
And how odd that this weightless whimsy
this icon of the city of light
is all cast-iron bolts and beams,
unadorned and massive.
Although even this may be part of its power
— the attraction of permanence and weight
in this wireless borderless place.