Gravity

December 7, 2025 - Poet: Bruce Bayard - Artwork: Vacant Lot, Los Angeles by Stanley Smith

Gravity

From one thousand feet

this green patch

home to earth worms

future home to an industrious

widget maker or two

currently lays vacant

on its back

looking back at the dirigible

motoring through its space.

Gray perimeter ribbons of road

home to busy bees

snarled in traffic

on two sides

waiting for a green light

heading south and west

or down and out.

Through the center

a promenade of crushed granite

gives way to weed patches

building bridges from

both rectangles

blurring the line that

cuts through

this vacant lot.

A lofty camera

not quite perpendicular

to the bed of earth

drives wedges

into edges

of conformity.

It’s not gravity

or rolling terrain

that pushes this city block

into trapezoidal modality

but a birds eye view

and a quick framing moment

from blue sky window.