craft

   rock

pressed in ancient beds of granite, slate and limestone,
         latent meaning morphs through dreamless sleep,
   eventually to break the rolling waves and rise
      from out the heavy hollows of the deep.

            eons steadily reveal
   frameworks laid beneath the ground,
         raw potentials long concealed.

rugged hands reflect on broken bits of earth,
         weathered through millenniums of doubt,
   and dimly sense potentials waiting undiscerned,
      conceptions to be learned and reasoned out.

            soon flames are tamed in hearthstone mounds,
   grains are pounded into meal,
         and slings are armed with small gray rounds.
 

   artifacts

barrows seal the homes where bones return to dust;
         dolmens house the disembodied dead—
   expressions raised to honor dear departed blood,
      conveyed throughout millenniums of dread.

            boundaries birth a web of walls,
   stretched throughout diverse terrain,
         enclosing keeps and township halls.

hallowed chambers echo whispers, murmured rites.
         columns vault gray shadows to a haze,
   and effigies defy the cruelties of time
      amid the slow decline of ancient ways.

            castles rise on golden plains
   and mountain palaces enthrall
         ridge tops in the sunset’s wane.
 

   trace

ages past are carved and mortared into place,
         stacked against the ravages of wear,
   impressions left to echo long forgotten days
      across the centuries of grueling care.

            quarries reach through hidden lodes
   for raw materials to build
         nascent hopes and strong abodes.

waters feed the ducts of resolute invention,
         wind buffets walls of praise and grave regret,
   towers guard their gates from sinister intention,
      bridges keystone over streams and vales. and yet

            each rigid monument of skill
   brick by stone in time erodes,
         erasing every act of will.