Vol. 1 No. 1 Fall 1965
Tower Building
(for Dick who started it all)
It begins in idleness,
a mood detached as doodling,
the small flat stones within easy reach.
Across the river,
on that little beach a-swing and rocking
every summer sun with the cradles
of unborn giants, are the big ones,
the real tower stones. From here,
relaxed, belly down beside the swimming hole,
we can see where all but one have fallen,
the required impetus
given by a too nervous hand
trying desperately to place
the last always impossible stone;
Or a black phoebe alighting
on what it trustingly thought
was a solid perch!
Why, even a weightless wren
can topple that balance, a
wisp of wind upset the craziest
equilibrium since Babel!
Nevertheless, we’ll be over there soon
unsatisfied even with the last one
which wobbles up over six feet,
then leans outward like the one in Pisa,
amazing the trees, waiting
for a falling twig to hit the top;
A random monarch fanning too close;
or that fatal wind-puff, so we can begin again,
like Sisyphus, at the bottom.
Eric Barker