Architect’s Watercolor
By Arthur Sze
An architect draws a watercolor
depicting two people about to enter
a meeting room, while someone
on the stairway gazes through windows
at a park, river, skyscrapers beyond;
he does not want to be locked
like a carbon atom in a benzene ring
but needs to rotate, lift off,
veer along wharves and shoreline.
In the acoustics of this space,
he catches a needle bounce
off a black granite floor, wanders
from a main walkway, encounters
prickly pear burned purple in wind.
In the ocean gusts before dawn,
he yearns for a Mediterranean spray
where sunlight tingles eyelashes,
where sand releases heat
under the stars. In the atrium,
two violinists launch fireworks
of sound that arc, explode, dissolve
into threads of melodic charm.
Here slate near a pool of water
absorbs sunlight, releases ripples
into the evening; and in this space,
each minute is encounter:
he steps out and makes
footprints on a sidewalk dusted with snow.
