2015-04-19
by
Eleanor Goldfield
Oh to be a brick on that wall
Watch the years rise and fall
To not care about the carpe or the diem –
the lovers, haters or the lines that age them
Oh to outlive the fleeting,
to smile at the timeless with a knowing grin,
to sit atop days and weeks and months and years and lives and deaths and change
and to be immune to it all –
no sickness save weather but even harsh storms are weathered here –
summers serene likewise winters brisk air.
No lack of care, just a calm and simple stare.
No partaking in loving or aching-
the pleasure and pain that my walls and I bring –
so dictated not by ourselves but the ones inside and out –
blocked or protected, kept out or saved.
The folly and triumph of your kind so laid, on our lines and named –
as evil or good,
then misunderstood or known too well
and then broken,
an enemies token.
Then from the dust do we come up again,
a monument made, barriers placed –
and you call it new but we always knew
that we are the old, the repetitive few –
watching, not waiting, just staying, so patient.
You are the ones replaced.