We are wall and buttress,
the last thing upright standing
of sanctuaries burned in battle.
The acid rain of absence
has pitted stripping handholds
in our outward, seeming, surface,
for the sandblast of the wind
whose horizontal forces face me
stress me
daily push me
backward on you harder
for resistance and support.
Everything conspires
to throw down what is standing,
the land itself has risings
and equal daily fallings
that twist in tensile turnings
that make the bent steel break.
Even Time, whose torque is tangent
to the inward pull of gravity
and the outward wear of turning
that the planet puts upon us
as it rubs us through the pulling
of stars, black holes, and planets,
even Time’s entropic spinning
tries to shear us from each other,
tries to tear what we are doubled
into what we are alone.
They have weighed against us always
and will weigh against us ever,
the outward ripping forces
of rage and sheer frustration,
and the inward spidering stresses
of loneliness and fear.
But the work they do is futile;
when the sun goes west, I shade you
and at windrise, you uphold me;
we are always
wall and buttress,
the first one upright standing
of palaces invisible
and strong as they are new.
©WILLIAM JOHN WATKINS
William John Watkins 