Revisionist Poetry – ““The River’s Little Undertaking” – Uncertain Sculptures, v.5 (A bit of gothic daydreaming)

Along the riverbank I wander,
collecting stones for my doomed little architecture,
as though the universe had not already made clear
its opinion of permanence.

I choose my rocks like an undertaker chooses florals:
with care, with dread, with faint embarrassment.
This one is a knuckle.
That one looks like a tooth.
Another has the cold authority of a gravestone
and the personality of a bad omen.

The river gurgles beside me,
soft as a conspirator,
dragging off leaves, silt, prayers,
and every overconfident plan I have ever made.
It seems to say, with perfect politeness,
Yes, yes, stack the stones.
We shall see.

The sun, that cheerful embalmer,
lays its warm hand on my neck
while I crouch in the mud
arranging my little tower of defiance.
Up goes one rock, then another,
each one balancing like a lie at a family dinner.

I laugh when it wobbles.
I laugh because it almost stands.
I laugh because there is something grotesquely noble
about trying to build a cathedral
out of materials that would sooner become rubble.

And when the whole thing collapses—
and of course it does,
with the soft, rude finality of a body
slipping unnoticed from the world—
I bow to the wreckage
as if it were an audience.

For here, beside the river,
I find my truest vocation:
to make brief, ridiculous monuments
to the fact that everything beautiful
is already being taken apart.