Out on the viewing platform you look down,
From heights of sky
The wind-hit storeys try to scrape,
At this grand canyon of a cityscape
Whose vastitude your shivers magnify.
Down there: toy town.

The cliffs of layered glass around you plummet
In sheer descent,
And liquid crystal codes of glare,
To palisade the distant giddy square
And all its pygmy rush of incident.
Posed on the summit

Like an angel in the film Wings of Desire,
Or figurehead,
You watch it all: the fountain’s spill
Of sculptured light that sparkles but hangs still,
The courthouse dome, museum roofed in lead,
Cathedral spire,

Café umbrellas, spread like mushrooms, pooled
In rings of shade,
And in the plaza, urgent swarms
Of fellow beings in their uniforms
Of wish and will, neither to be allayed
Nor overruled

From here. And at some hard-to-calculate
Rank of midair
Between you and the peopled floor,

At their own purposes, some pigeons soar,
Or land on scarcements of the buildings, where
They perch and wait.

Although you may not see him from so far,
Among the press
And milling of pedestrians,
Idlers and those at lunch, one figure scans
The sky and, by keen sight or lucky guess,
Finds where you are.

And on the square these actors and events
Transpire and play on,
A much much smaller square has been
Described by some street artist, with a scene
Of trompe l’oeil detail drawn in coloured crayon
That represents

The view you’re now observing, as from the top
Of this same tower:
Courthouse, museum, fountain, square,
The crowds, a pigeon stationed in midair,
And, with a sense of depth to overpower
Your balance, that drop.

One paving stone’s this roof, and on its rim,
Half-thrilled, half-cowed
By the grand vista he commands,
As though afraid to fall, a small boy stands –
Or seeks that figure in the chalk-drawn crowd
Who’s watching him.

Stephen Edgar

CONTENTS: JULY–AUGUST 2012