endlessly painting the foundation,

shoring it up, tweaking it, admiring it,

defending it,

clobbering others with bricks

left over from it …

and over and over

going down into it

to live in the

dank, darkness

as they pull the

tarp over it

peering out one last time

with eyes filled with

a fear that contains

no wonder….

they forgot, as sappho and

salinger advised, to

“raise high the roofbeam,

carpenters.”

—- a poem by Tom Eggebeen and Bob Dahl