Vertigo

Silently the monster lay

In the strength of its earth and concrete muscles,

Holding back the flood

Like Atlas holding up the earth.



Under a big sky it lay,

A sky baked white in the July sun.



At its feet the rocky river lay,

Rolling water festooned

With boats,

The fishing rods at angles reminescent

Of net-bearing masts

On deep sea trawlers.



On its back

I looked down from the asphalt roadway

And watched with sensless, growing horror

The trickle

That flowed

From one silent mouth, 

Staining brown the gray spillway.



Vertigo is the brother

Of all large objects,

Upon whose backs stand

The overly gifted primates:

It is the fearsome brother of awe.



Brother vertigo was with me that day,

Above the trickling spillway,

And the mouth held shut

Against tons of palpable, potential noise,

With the slow, rocky river in front of me,

And the wide blue lake,

Under the whitening sky of July,

Behind.


       ŠAugust 11, 1999