The Unknowing Architect –
I built a word of hollow bone,
A feather-thought, a whispered tone,
And set it sailing, light as air,
A harmless ghost, without a care.
It found no purchase on the cliff
Of your strong mind, so firm and stiff.
But in some soft and hidden vale,
It struck a silent, mournful gale.
A storm brewed in a sunlit sky,
A shadow in a friendly eye.
I came with buckets of regret,
With pleas I never shall forget.
I begged the tide to turn around,
On hallowed, self-dug, trembling ground.
But no apology could reach
The shore your anger held to teach.
For what was air to me, the sender,
Was solid stone to you, the render.
A key that fits a lock unknown,
A seed in darkness, grimly sown.
We are all unknowing architects,
Throwing pebbles, causing effects
In distant ponds we cannot see,
With currents of psychology.
Each day we walk with gentle tread,
Yet haunted by what might be said,
By how a glance, a word, a pause,
Can bend the world to different laws.
So now I move more cautiously,
And see the chains of cause I’m free
To start, but never to unmake
A truth from which I can’t awake.
A harmless act, a harmful end,
On this frail wire, we balance, friend.
(The figure man who loves alphabets)
