Night gathers itself into a ball of dark yarn.
Night loosens the ball and it spreads.
The lookouts from the shores of Lake Michigan
find night follows day, and ping! ping! across
sheet gray the boat lights put their signals.
Night lets the dark yarn unravel, Night speaks and the yarns change to fog and blue strands.
The lookouts turn to the city.
The canyons swarm with red sand lights
of the sunset.
The atoms drop and sift, blues cross over,
yellows plunge.
Mixed light shafts stack their bayonets,
pledge with crossed handles.
So, when the canyons swarm, it is then the
lookouts speak
Of the high spots over a street . . . mountain language
Of skyscrapers in dusk, the Railway Exchange,
The People's Gas, the Monadnock, the Transportation,
Gone to the gloaming.
The river turns in a half circle.
The Goose Island bridges curve
over the river curve.
Then the river panorama
performs for the bridge,
dots . . . lights . . . dots . . . lights,
sixes and sevens of dots and lights,
a lingo of lanterns and searchlights,
circling sprays of gray and yellow.
The 21-floor Railway Exchange building was built in 1914 and was the tallest building in Chicago when it opened.
When the Monadnock Building was built in 1893, it was the largest office building in the world.
The Transportation Building is now a condominum.
Goose Island was created in 1857 when a canal was dug, making a short cut across the bend in the Chicago River.
This the penultimate part of a longer poem about Chicago.
Poetry Atlas has many other poems about Chicago.