New Poem - Wet Cement

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Here's another poem based on a Patreon donor prompt.  There's hundreds of hours of weird, wonderful content on the site; all yours for pennies a day!  

WET CEMENT

Clinker:

The raw, inert 

guts

poured into a bucket.

Activated 

with common water.

(too little

and the end result

cracks)

Hands steady.

We pour.   Somewhere,

A clock's heart throbs.

One day, two (maybe) -

And it's set.

Tending to the surface.

Smoothing out 

the anxious bubbles.

Imprinting our descendant's skin

which preserves for 

half a century, long after

we mere carpenters

surrender our trowels,

our gauge rakes, our 

artisan paddles.

Night.  A shift concluded.

We sleep.

That tabula rasa 

stares expectantly

at the moon, its godmother.

Lovers, vandals, the 

hulk of anonymous

men,

starving for any 

lasting impression,

they too may leave

a mark; scratch out their 

initials, scar this

constructed child

with a careless 

tire print.

We prepare.

We cordon off.

We erect warnings.

We compound with quality materials.

We broker faith in our neighbors.

We fret.  Too many pock-marked

progenitors

littered with selfish influence.

It's just concrete, you say.

We bow our heads,

casting concern upon 

the  trodden, rough-shod ground

while others amble, cock their chins,

eyes skyward.