Structure

Some structures

are understood

only by the way

they refuse to yield.

Stand long enough

beneath an old bridge,

and the eye

forgets the stone.

It begins instead

to follow the silence

between one weight

and the next,

where the arch

persuades gravity

to become

its accomplice.

I have wondered

whether a soul

is assembled

in much the same manner.

Not by its visible rooms,

but by the hidden geometry,

where every unseen joining

learns the precise language

of restraint,

and every fracture,

given enough seasons,

discovers

how to carry

what once threatened

to undo it.

There are those

who move through another life

as though reading elevations,

measuring windows,

counting doors,

mistaking symmetry

for understanding.

Then, very rarely,

someone pauses.

Not at the façade,

but where the grain

changes direction,

where an old beam

leans almost imperceptibly,

where the air itself

seems to hesitate,

as though remembering

the weight

that passed this way.

Nothing is spoken.

Yet something rises,

slowly,

like water

finding the forgotten channels

beneath stone,

or sap

ascending through timber

long before

the branches confess

to spring.

Perhaps that is all

I have ever sought.

Not admiration.

Only the impossible mercy

of meeting a gaze

that lingers

just long enough

to perceive

which quiet span

has been holding

the whole horizon.