Miami Detached – poem inspired by Vincent Scully

I wrote this poem for an assignment as a 4th year architecture student at The University of Miami.  It was a seminar by the renowned Yale art historian, Vincent Scully, who inspired students for years with writings on architecture.  I look back at how lucky I was to have been taught by this brilliant mind and also how relevant this poem is, not just about the evolution of architecture, but the evolution of our city.

We have a responsibility now with its massive growth — resiliency, affordability, preservation, sustainability, to name a few.

—

Miami is the shadows formed on a young girl’s face one Summer afternoon.

It’s the wrinkles on the hands of an old black man.

It’s looking through a magnifying glass at darkness.

 

At its shore I can discern a “Miami Detached” as the cruise ships try to merge themselves once again with reality.

 

Reality means turning into a sail high-strung to its mast,

feeling the strength and the near ending effort to survive,

or a coral rock trying not to disintegrate, while it knows, the more salt water that flows, the more porous it will become.

 

Why does the blind look at the sun?

How can you touch hate?

Taste love?

Smell apathy?

 

The petals of a rose out of bloom still give you a fascinating scent, just as that which cannot feel, will eventually rot.

 

Life means metamorphosis, close scrutiny and pain.

We can discuss this when architects become a thing of the past.

 

Poem written for Vincent Scully’s “The Natural and the Manmade” seminar, about Miami’s Skyline

by Ines Hegedus-Garcia (4th year architecture student at The University of Miami).

*published june 2010