The architecture of heroes and clouds,
stories on leashes – believe,
all the concrete and glass. The words
are carried away, in grains,
one piece of sedimentary history
at a time. One ghostly piece of adobe wall.
This is a hero-less story.
Hogan architects, building
just the empty homes.
Wind storms raving, approaching
in dust, in red gray waves
under my city, under my tunnels through
myth. The storm is underground, screaming
through the clay. The dead must be
tied down, held in their graves.

The inhabitants left. Left burnt out trailers,
concrete foundations, broken glass
from desolation to desolation.
Snow in the footprints of their heroes -
we imagine we are wrong.
There is only the storm without heroes,
a carnival without a plot
gathering white bones
in the sand. Cages
keep the emptiness inside -
keep the emptiness
inside like a promise. Reconstructing
the thin cold dream,
cracks open mouths spitting stone,
sending walls back to forgotten.

So remember the architects in
their crumbling shadows, remember red
dust moving through the pile of years,
remember creating the geometry of broken
lives – they were breathing dust in slow revolutions.

R Berk
October, 1997 NYC