Generation

They don’t all work. They don’t all
Finish. A half can languish,
Or the added half collapse.

Nothing’s really building them.
Nothing’s waiting patiently.
Meanwhile, they accumulate,

Not quite like the days and hours,
Ever bravely modular,
Which return without neglect,

More the ways shells and stones build,
Layer by tattered layer,
Disconformities within.

But accumulate they do,
Despite all the vanishing,
And they can’t be taken back,

No matter how well-erased,
Even the never-finished
Can never be taken back.