Digging Toward Cathedrals
The Tetrameter Journal: On the Archaeology of Meaning
Image by lisa runnels from Pixabay
An ode to the difficulty, and rewards, of making meaning.
Digging Toward Cathedrals
Density, layers of texture,
Piles of meaning like deep laundry,
Our attempts stuffed into drawers,
To be pulled out and put on
When rich happenings call for style,
Well-dressed understandings of things,
Shades of meaning draped, waterfalls
Over slumped shoulders, beautiful,
But--perhaps--little more than wet.
Stackers of meaning, thin, dense strips,
Building persuasion’s foundation,
Necessities, like knives for meat,
Laying ours next to theirs, claiming
Better!
Meaning laid over centuries,
Strata, materials of thought,
Religion's sacred bread and wine,
A philosopher's frantic scratch,
Pen scraping, mountains of velum,
And dancing's shimmered bodies,
Stacked, packed in thin layers, soulful,
Atop long lines of sex's past,
Lovers comingled, fossilized.
All Sapien activity--
Strata miles down from surfaces--
Gaming, friendship, designs of grace,
And a whole wide shelf of suff'ring.
Nows are bubbling volcanoes,
Hot meaning pouring up moments,
Our hands hot with molten spillage,
Grasping as the thick substance slides
Past our need, past our des'prate hope.
Too often, we are left with cold
Rock-hard certainty, best for stone
Hammerheads, for meaning's war.
Slow work, digging down through strata,
Density's natural resistance.
Easier to look up, yes?
Just stop digging and surface-walk,
Face to the sun, cheek to the breeze,
Eyes feasting on bright color wheels.
But my soles know there's richness, earth,
Just below, and below that, more.
Life is a dig, careful sweeping
Dust from mem'ry's impressure,
Revealing with each new inch down
Another clue--no answer--
But a clue that when strung a bit,
Tied or puzzled into others,
Builds a structure, suggesting
An emergent frame—yes! —meaning.
It's not the one, but, oh my god,
Breathtaking cathedral down here,
A cool place for resting, for praise.