I have changed and I am changing.
Like this town,
Old facades fall
And the promise of a better way
Rises from the rubble of memories
Warm and familiar.

The old and the new find space here.
The stone past and the fluid present,
The river and the bridge,
The arches of then bend over
The current of now,
Cut out and carved,
Twisting and flowing.

Lines cast still,
Hooks reel in empty
And they do it all again,
As I love and lose
And do it all again,
Rebuilding my abutments
For a third time since arriving here.

This time the work is slow.
One hand shovels,
Filling in the holes love left behind
When it departed.
Ripping my supports from their foundation
Deep in the earth,
Beneath the running water.

The other scrubs away the future
From the slate of my expectations.
As what was etched there
Has turned to mere delusion,
I must start again at engraving
A more plausible picture.
But the lines were chiseled deep
By my determined hands
So the work of erasing draws on and on.

To create and destroy at the same time,
Like the water erodes the bank
While carrying the assurance of life
Through the verdant landscape
To the abundant sea.

I wish I could call this growth.
While I hope this laboring is not in vain
There is no knowing if any of it will leave me
With the foundation of self I seek.
This backbreaking toil
Is merely to break even,
To give me a dry place to stand.

The sun now departs.
Orange dipping behind green
The light turns blue,
And I need a jacket.
Shivering, I stand
To find warmth.