What does it take
To bring a building to its knees?
The secret to know
Is that it breathes
In
And out
Silently
(Not its tenants, no, nor the electricity
Nor the water flushed through its pipes)
But steady your hand
against the concrete wall.
Stacked from seventeen floors of cement, steel and necessity
It stands while sleeping
Just a smudge, a child among neighbours
That pierces
The frost-tipped skyline.
With each winter, the building cries
Precipitation drips off the windows inside
And sinks into the plastered walls
Where mold grows in rust-coloured patches
As it sighs, sound lost in the wind that whistles and jeers.
The building refuses to topple.
There's no giant to fear
Just the winter cracks that spread
With each laboured breath
(Wrinkles are painful to have, it'll say if it could talk)
Like spiderwebs
The same neglect that ails Time as it hobbles by.
Hold Time's hand
Hold us in each other's arms
And let us pray on our knees
So the building
Does not need to feel
The need to learn
To fall.
Granted this poem took a different turn as I neared the end. It helped me out of a writing funk though.