we're wrapped up
worshiping "more for less!!"
erecting concrete-block monstrosities
shadowing the handmade.
this cathedral smells musty, like history, and
i think you'll know what i mean, the way
bygone buildings accrue the
quiet habits of older times.
thousands of hands
helped mold the metal,
smooth the wood,
wear patinas into the key
protruding
from the lock, stuck for who knows
how many years.
places
like these make me certain that
history is not quite so removed as we
think. peeling-plaster jesus implores
the peeling-paint benches, take
me down, the centuries are
really getting to me,
get to the root of it.
get to the root of it.
sometimes when i run my fingers
on the floorboards i can't even
feel the nails although my eyes
say my hands are lying,
and all this jagged paint
and plaster falling off the walls
makes me ashamed of how little
anyone cares to preserve
brick-by-brick examples of why
big and new is not better,
or
advanced.
*B.A. senior thesis poem