Gaudi's Unbending Vision, by Celeste DeSario

Casa Milà, by Antoni Gaudí (Spain) 1906–1912. Thomas Ledl, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Gaudi’s Unbending Vision
 
La Pedrera--The Quarry--even the name is undulating,
A gothic-like structure flows through the sky in waves,
Yet stands steadfast.
 
What is it to live within such a structure?
Do night creatures visit the tenants
while the balconies sway with the phases of the moon,
and the tides from which they sprang?
Is that why most of its apartments are no longer occupied?
 
But one ghost remains, 
Making coffee, wandering from room to room,
Writing. 
A guardian of the space,
looking out at tourists
who are looking in at her.
 
We trace her steps, our eyes climbing with her--
up, up to where the roof pierces the sky, 
Twisted into spirals and spewing smoke.
The helmeted chimney-warriors stand watch,
An Ave Maria prayer hidden in their helmets,
A Rosary in stone carefully hung at the cornice
To funnel away danger,
Staving off decay,
a shield against a crumbling world.
 
Those soldiers look down at a city in turmoil.
Stony- faced. Grim. Uncompromising. 
Are they guarding us? The people? 
Or are they staunchly protecting an ideology, 
rooted only in his mind.
 
My gaze is fixed on balconies,
Malleable metal railings,
fashioned from scrap iron. Bars. Chains
Hooking my eyes like barbed wire.
But when I blink and look,
The view is the same.
 
An unwavering vision 
Holding steadfastly to beliefs.
A man who could bend a building’s terraces
But would not bend his truth
For anyone.

Celeste DeSario
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Celeste DeSario taught English at Suffolk County Community College in Brentwood, NY for 37 years. Celeste received teaching honors from SUNY and the University of Texas, and now focuses on writing her own fiction. Her recent poetry appears in The New Verse News, with work forthcoming in the Spring 2026 issues of The Changing Times and The SportsScribe Literary Magazine.