I have laid them, one at a time,
in the bright days
Of summer: the dust of quicklime,
the subtle ways
The trowel shakes the mortar's cling
and dresses brick
After brick, making this one thing
emerge, this trick
Of patient labor now become
anonymous
And lasting, not designed for some
but all of us.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
If only we could live in an edifice formed from the bricklayer's nurturing purposes, but unfortunately those are intangible. On our present-day earth many bricklayers build structures that stand uninhabited on the landscape, because economic winds positioned their hands for the benefit of a speculator. Before the building can fulfill its ostensible purpose (and many never do) , the speculator has already cashed in.