The Older Beams

Hewn from the woods cleared to fields,

the old poplar beams, the originals,

marked by the adze and the chalkline,

upstanding, native grown, strong

in their bearing yet weak in the storms

if it weren't for their braces, and thus

the diagonals of the past hold me up.

I may creak in the gusts,

but don't expect me to fall,

having stood this long in one place,

place my mortice and tenon of days.