steel cold looks
cool worked metal in hand
American workers pause
waiting to take stand
not on trial
but as witness to tell
of planes and plain faces
they have known so well
cross examined
with tacit emotion
by averting eyes broken
and curtains unopened
the artist a jury
convicts without words
his portrait the judge
its sentence unheard
but architectures fate
arcs down towards man
to remind him
of lost history's demand
to imitate the past
on infertile soil
to bear no fruit
and continue their toil