Revisionist Poetry – “Lens Above the Street” – Up Towards the Clouds, v.3

The day opens cleanly.
The skyline stands
like a thought too tall to hold,
its buildings disappearing
into a gauze of cloud.

He cranes upward,
the photographer,
neck aching, eyes narrowed,
hunting that brief angle
where a tower seems to lean
into the sky.

Around him, the street surges.
Engines mutter.
Footsteps strike the pavement.
A siren folds itself
into the distance.
Yet in the circle of his lens
there is only attention.

He waits for the city to reveal itself:
a reflective pane,
a slit of light,
a rooftop swallowed by mist,
a flock of windows
catching the morning at once.
Then the shutter speaks.

One image, then another.
Not records, exactly,
but offerings:
the weight of a building,
the lift of cloud,
the hush inside the frame
where motion becomes form.

And when he lowers the camera,
he feels it —
that rare, steady joy
of having met the world
and held it,
for a fraction of a second,
still.