It’s a good life, the builder’s life:
Out in all weathers,
Digging, laying, pointing, praying
The rain holds off another day.
Give me the simple building life:
Excavating buried guilts and fears,
Shoveling them on the skip
Like so much rubble;
Shoring up with hardcore
Shaky beliefs and promises;
Lining up neatly
Scattered cobblestone memories;
Filling up the cracks
Of the mind with silver sand;
Cementing, like a jigsaw of pavers,
The pieces of a ravaged heart;
Patiently, expertly bonding
Random, discoloured bricks
Of love and joy, hope and desire,
Till I am safe and whole and new.
This is a lovely vision, Robert, excavated from your patio project. It really is extraordinary what we can create out of the broken pieces of life. I've always thought that quilts are a strange art form in a similar way, sewing scraps together into a new fabric. Wonderful poem, I especially love Filling up the cracks / Of the mind with silver sand . . .
ReplyDeleteOh whaoou SW you are amazing !
ReplyDeleteFilling up the cracks
Of the mind with silver sand;
Cementing like a jigsaw of pavers
The pieces of a ravaged heart;
Patiently, expertly laying
Random, discoloured bricks
Of love and joy, hope and desire,
Till you are safe and whole and new.
What resonant words for me these days...
Quite wonderful, Robert! It is often difficult, however, to find the patience and expertise to complete that noble project of becoming "safe and whole and new." Build on, my friend, build on! Otherwise, we are left with nothing relentless degeneration.
ReplyDeleteI like this very much. Thanks for posting it.
ReplyDelete"... Till I am safe and whole and new."
Now that is one fantastic extended metaphor!
ReplyDelete... and so say I, Susan!
ReplyDeleteThanks everyone for your comments! I do so appreciate them.
ReplyDeleteNice poem . . . though the current agonies of builder's back and builder's knees around my house right now make this seem a romantic view indeed! But there is something satisfying and fortifying about hard physical work with tangible results.
ReplyDeleteToday is Victoria day in Canada, i have been in front of this keyboard since crack of dawn and was pleasantly surprised by a stroll out of the front door to see the Peony, Rhodenrdron and Irises in bloom, of Mother who planted them. patiently patiently too must i tend to the fragments of my years that have flowed under my rickety bridges,
ReplyDeleteand hope to show you soon a photo or two of what this summer brings = meegwetch