after Glass Forest installation by Dale Chihuly in collaboration with James Carpenter, 1971
A glass tree falls in an empty room, perceived
to be a forest of creatable light. No one is there
to see it die, to watch its electrically charged neon
flicker, sputter in technological spasm as if wishing
it could warp the twisted but unbending body
of its death vessel. It deserves the cacophony
of a triumphant shatter, but instead gets nothing
but a slow dissipating buzz to mark
the extinguishing of internal torch.
