Works.

WORKS

   It puzzled me right from the start:
   Things are always what they seem
   Not what I'm told they are.

   Damned are they, I'm told,
   But see these magnificent works!
   How can such changing, whirling,
   Sparkling things ever turn to mold?

   Queen of Sheba, brave Mamluk,
   Sinan, Churchill, Twain,
   One man, I'm told, has even seen
   Heaven--I read it in a book.

   Builders, writers, movers, shakers
   Verses, oeuvres, facades
   Taken together, added all up
   Overwhelmed even my calculator.

   (That toy was yet another source of rapture
   So sleek and black and powerful
   A cleverer than clever contraption.)

   Then late one day I took up a book, frayed
   And filmy with dust. Eyes wide open,
   Stunned I looked, body turned to rust,
   The cover seemed to say: "Today, mon
   frere, today--"

You can call it comeuppance. I called it faith.

--SARAH BRAMWELL