Bilbao

Daybreak glitters and gleams off swoops and sworls,
Gliding down metal curves, inner child on a slide,
Organic silhouette, mechanical ingredients,
Technology enabling kindergarten on a massive scale.

O Gehry! O Frank! To have witnessed your epiphany,
The instant when an aborted sketch lobbed towards the rubbish
Caught for a moment the sun in your window.
Was it an accident, or a vision, or a hoax, or a dream?
What was the shape of your eyes when the lightbulb, as they say, switched on?

O Frank! O Gehry! O high priest of millennial form!
What will our grandchildren say of your rumpled cathedrals?
Will they look on them laughing? Will they sing hymns?
Or will they call forth great wrecking balls and blanket the streets
With sparkling shattered steel splinters and shards and snowflakes?

Nightfall gleams and glitters off sworls and swoops,
Sliding down like a curtain across its gentle degrees,
Spanish stars reflected in cool, subtle skin,
Glints in eyes, knowing winks from old men.