The Stonemason
The base must pack level, or
be rock, or for naught. The materials chosen
with precision—pebble as well as marble. Each notion
I cut with granite patience, for
or against the grain.
Grasp me that I may grasp the higher calling.
You sculpt the words that, together, tamp & pillar
the monument. Let my hand dip mud & putty, rotate,
chip, carve the line.
The arcades & arches point,
the vault must wink to heaven, stone must criss-
cross with sky. I am the notch of a hidden geometry.
The cornerstone is the starting point
and the end, pivots on the perspective—
cathedral wall or crypt.
Each must be etched
& cradled into mortar, scored with gypsum’s
embrace, gemstone prayers for each
to hold & be held—it’s a body
we build, enduring
layer by mineral
layer.
Let this limestone be sanctuary,
these starstones not broken by barrage of bomb
or bombast—let this home shelter
the demolished. Let these stones sing
to the sorrowing & may the song
be you.
Laura Reece Hogan is the author of Butterfly Nebula (Backwaters, University of Nebraska Press, 2023), winner of the Backwaters Prize in Poetry, Litany of Flights (Paraclete Press, 2020), winner of the Paraclete Poetry Prize, the chapbook O Garden-Dweller (Finishing Line Press), and the nonfiction book I Live, No Longer I (Wipf & Stock). She is one of ten poets featured in the anthology In a Strange Land (Cascade Books). Her poems have appeared in America, Scientific American, Sugar House Review, RHINO, The Christian Century, Verse Daily and elsewhere.
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