Great Wall Of China: Material Requirements Poem by Terence George Craddock

take a measure of soil

sand earth wood bricks
stones multiply parts
each countless times
vary required proportions
construction materials
in construction times

stretching locations
into The Great Wall
of China defensive
early cultural insight
work spans time scales
it takes warring states

multiple dynasties
construction repairs
across centuries
it takes incalculable
cost slave toil effort
inhuman suffering

blood sweat tears
deaths to built
horizon stretching
continuous long walls
slave lives lost
earn a rest place

lives lost skeletons
sleep the great sleep
in longest grave wall
become part of wall
buried beneath wall
entombed beneath wall


Terence George Craddock (Shadows Of Light)
Copyright © Terence George Craddock