the construction of renovation

subtraction before addition

a cold breeze slips over me,

an insistent bird pipes at my attention,

while other birds are more random

in their whistles and warbles,

my body, too, pulls at my attention

with random aches and pains,

and, like the wind, blows my attention here and there,

the building site has no one working today:

bulldozers and backhoes, jackhammers and saws,

all have worked their will

on the old building and the older land,

cutting away to a flatness,

digging away to straight trenches, at right angles to each other,

concrete poured and waiting for the walls,

piles of cinder block stand at attention

and wait their turn to rise toward the sky,

the walls that will hold our dreams only an abstraction,

creation early on feels of destruction.

by Henry H. Walker

September 17, ’13