David Smith on the Roof

David Smith, Cubi XXVI

On the roof of the Met
burnished steel cubes,
cylinders, rectangles
and ellipsoids
balance
and tumble playfully
from the spirit of the artist
dead since '65. There's soul
in these abstracts that verge
on the functional
and defy gravity
as they jut into the hazy city's
concrete
and glass geometry.

We stray from chamber
music on the marble
and limestone balcony to the park
where rats
scamper from reservoir banks
and rustle green bushes.

We greet the litany of cab horns
and the soft pounding of sneakers
as they inscribe a charmed
circle of health. In this black
sky where stars barely shine,
we find only ourselves and desire,
and a harmony with the great soul

whose millions thrive on striking back
the demons at the edge of the circle,
and who go on to die in peace
at knowing the city
could claim only so much of them--
time and muscle, grit and grief.

(c) copyright 2012 Charles David. All rights reserved.

Note: I wrote this unpublished poem in 1999. I submitted it as part of a poetry prompt at dversepoets.com poetry prompt on sculpture.