Dean K. Engel
Dean K. Engel has written poetry, short stories, and a play that was staged by a small
community theater group in Chicago. His story “The Amuse Bouche” was selected by Secant Publishing for their 2024 anthology Best Original Short Stories on Climate Change. His poem “Pain Management” was included in Matters - Ed. 3 from Oprelle Publications. He is a two-time
cancer survivor, and an avid gardener and birder whose writing often reflects his interest in the natural world.​​
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SCRAPING THE SKY​
Scraping the sky, scaling the cityscape and soaring above the clouds
tempered and temper-free steel, strong and solid, precisely manufactured,
erected fifty-five stories high in a rigid frame with glass skin stretched
to its potential, new limits, new purpose serving and protecting its population
neither alive nor inert, but monumentally vital and crackling with life inside
wired and connected like a central nervous system, but more predictable
standing in the sun, immune to batteries of thunder and rain, designed cleverly
to sway slightly in the wind like a willow tree, the apotheosis of architectural vision
a beautiful creation metamorphosized from ore, silica, sweat, and inspiration
distillations of fever dreams of ambition, hubris, fear, and madness
lifeless yet alive, a middle finger thrust heavenward to challenge all chaos,
fortune, entropy, and chance for that is the promise of progress, of technology
our ingenuity in the face of life, of the random winds, whims of wanton nature
this testament to the capabilities of our tribes, our endless groping reach,
our desires to forge, build, control our environment, our future, our safety
all distilled into this edifice, devoid of pride or doubt itself and unable to speak,
it shouts at all who witness its utility, its austere beauty, its sacred mission.
There is a small department of employees responsible for cleaning the grounds,
including the thousands of birds that die jousting with the structure, drawn there by light
at night that should not be there, innately led to their infiltrated ancestral flight paths. That is their wiring, their biological directive. There is talk of replacing that team with robots soon. They do not judge or feel sad about death. The edifice, the robot crews never weep, never feel shame or question things, that is not the province of steel and glass and electricity.