Ideal City

You stand there, hunched over stacks of books and paper, mind whirring. The Vitruvian man is divinely created from your charcoal. Your workshop is flooded with sketches, spilling around your feet and pinned to the walls. Masterpieces overlapping with tested trials, I cannot tell the difference. Though even I can recognize The Last Supper. Beyond Christ and his disciples, I see the bluest skies. As he gives up his body and blood, you are up on the hilltop. The pillars of stone and pipes of tin spiral up and around your feet. You never lost your tower of song¹. Wrapped in canvas and oak, you leave in your flying machine. Soaring into the clouds, you leave me so curious. What are you hoping to reach?

1. tower of song: In Henry Wadsworth’s “Just Before Leaving for home,” this represents the lofty aspirations that are often pursued during youth but forgotten in adulthood.