7th Floor Secret; mine

High above the mountain
my feet float on
concrete
--a thousand billion tonnes it took to chisel this place--
These words, your words
--echo--
of a transparent world,
where the clouds and the river
mean rain and a bridge
nuisances. This window does not open.
This is our soaring cathedral
of red cedar, cottonwood, douglas' fir
that scrape and claw at the sky
swaying reminders
of that which cannot be tamed;
Only contained, retained, inflamed
with the sores of
too much oxygen.
--A broken taperecorder
why are you so big? covering the whole desk
whose words have you heard, whose genius
where did your plastic parts come from?
how these books did not start here, though
--the lines were printed by a man in his late forties right where I'm sitting--
when robins and flickers and warblers scream
what do you know about this paper that
creates these tomes around you?
Only one clearcut, and that for recreation
clouds, hills, trees, water
all transparent to you
--you can only see the concrete, the steel tubes, painted fake wood--
And you curse! Curse the walls the floor the roof the table the chair the filing cabinet
and you wonder, who what where why when how
can you have become this
--trembling monster, who cries in the dark--
Craving, without knowing,
--without ever having a hope of understanding--
That it is the darkened twilight of the living forest
with the silent fauna and singing flora
That we mourn.