I found you

lone brick, of a million, one part of a mortared whole

your brothers now buried by time, without benediction  

progeny of clay, shale, you were born in a kiln as hot as all creation

dragged to this plain by spoked wheel and mule--sweat of the honest illiterate

long before the dusters blew the crops to hell, and Tom Joad's kin to the promised land

the mason who laid you in a proud straight row is now in the ground too

not a mile from you, where the county put him the hot Friday a man set foot on the moon

the bricklayer’s days with the trowel long past, his memories of you, your place in all weathers interred with him  

I found you , and you are the man’s legacy, he yours