Building Strong Bones

In the lovely resonant

shadowed hollow of

an architectural ruin,

the beauties of

its skeleton become

more than engineering,

more than a means

of shelter or a clever

way to shut people

in or out–

What happens is

life becomes caught

in the interstices of

a building’s bones–

vitality drawn off

from all the smaller lives

that have come through;

in the humming open space

of a lovely

building in ruin,

mortality is kept

as though in a jewel-case

or a body quite perfectly made

for being loved

North

 

The depth of the lake cannot be guessed

 

Its shimmering silicate glacial glow

 

With turquoise mask screens what’s below

 

In filtered glimmer, thought at best

 

To be just deep enough to hold

 

Beneath the frigid upper glass

 

Down in its centermost crevasse

 

Something mysterious, so old

 

It’s passed from memory and ken

 

And only surfaces when stars

 

Come showering down as red as Mars

 

To call it upward once again

 

Communing with its antique kin

 

For roaring moments in the night

 

Before the day dawns turquoise bright

 

And glassy water closes in

 

Once more its inexpressive glow

 

A wall of silence ageless, stern

 

And secretive, where none can learn

 

What lives those fathoms down below