France

PARIS

Standing beneath it to see
The beauty of its structure.
A complex lattice.
It is a beautiful form.
The stairs through the tower
A great experience.
The structure all over you.
Each step up, you are
Into the structure more and more.
An experience
Different from standing on the ground.
Viewing the form
Above the rivetting, the nuts and bolts.
The view from each landing
Also of Paris.
But more fascinating, to look inwards
Into the structure of the tower.
On each landing, to read
A brief historical note about the tower
As tourists rush by
As children screaming, find their way up.
On the first level
More about the Paris you can see afar.
Benches along the periphery.
The fine detail of the steps.
Sitting in the centre, against railing.
The bookshop.
The post-office
From where we send a letter home
Just to say we are at the Eiffel Tower now.
Where we write the postcard
Get it stamped
And then ask for it back
Because we forget to mention that
We are sending postcard from Eiffel Tower.
The films about the tower
The Eiffel tower in the movies
Circuses and fests around the Tower
The panaromic views
Moving along two walls
Two walls at right angles
And the film moving
From one wall into the other.
I look at the corner
To see what happens there
How do the pictures turn
The Eiffel Tower at night
And so on and on
The three-dimensional stories in the view-holes
About Eiffel supervising the execution of the work
Gustave Eiffel on the construction site.


(Poetry by Kiran Keswani - Glucksburg, Germany)