Covenants

“Building VI” by Antony Gormley

no words last forever

every covenant made

with ourselves every

vow spoken into the

silence of solitude

each will be broken

abandoned in turn

we are apt to forget

what we used to believe

ever mortal with weakness

frantically clambering

moment to moment

the gauntlet of time

its merciless hammers

and chisels of change

raining blows in a

random reshaping

of consciousness

chips flying hither and yon

brittle fragments

expired convictions

detritus of past iterations

a broken mosaic

old motives and dreams

dead stonedusted ghosts

of the long train of people

who once wore our minds

we grow endlessly different

the product of conflict

between new and newer

ideas cursed with

doubtful identity

marked as the world’s

most untrustworthy species