Building Season

I saw a place that lived and died—

Where crows flew in the same constellation

As years before, and mothers

Collected mechanical memories

Fastened to rings and scarves,

While wives read letters and cursed their Gods.

Daughters and sons fixed buttons to holes,

And dogs reminisced on obedient scents—

Searching a final command

Amongst scattered stone cold masters.

Projected in my mind, the tactile

Rock and sweat, the muddy earth,

Mopped grass tufts and raked coal scuppers

Leaning two sides instead of four,

And a shaken tower facade

Shaping the broken landscape.

The tracks ended abruptly,

They fell in a swirl of weapons and fists,

Of boots and metal and markers.

Steamy rusted blood had waft its last

Across soggy open pitch

Where cemeteries claimed their place

Rising from the mire, plotted

Upon the wake of will and weapon.

Last April they washed them clean,

Hauling away men’s stones.

I watched the signs of fortification

Stir across the space with attrition,

Precision and blind religious faith—

Ten more feet by November

And every year is antebellum,

This place filled with holes

And roads piled high with bones

And ancient standards desecrated—

Time does not heal these.

I saw the murder flying through the pasty sky,

Felt the icy clay in my fists go numb,

And cold gauzy darkness overcome.

On my fixed horizon loomed Alcazar,

Built by Tantilian soldiers.

Three quarters is not enough

To save men’s souls,

Yet two more seasons at least were needed

To groom the boys as men.