The Mason

The mason's hammer scribes a perfect arc,
the pin rings out a perfect note
an octave down from middle C.
Much lower than the rest.

Twelve pins there are in twelve drilled holes,
even-spaced in a straight line.
In turn the mason plays them all,
but hits the high notes first.

And so the hammer rises, falls...
the stranger hears a tune.
The mason, though, brings all twelve pins
to ring out clear with one sound note.

Soon, as he taps them evenly, 
together down the scale, a crack appears --
thin, wiry thing, like a shy mouse 
that scampers pin to pin.

Yet still the mason taps: the crack runs down
the marble block at either end.
Still must the mason listen to the pins
until the block comes clean away.

Severed from its mountain home,
it groans down to the ground
and rolls before the mason's feet
and those of him who first selected it.

The master carver sees within
the shapes that wait for their new day.
But for the mason every day is as this one,
and every night he dreams his one sad dream.

The pins are choristers whom he conducts;
they sing the same cantata time and time
again, until the point at which the notes
become the only note in town.

It is a sort of death. A crack runs through
the ground. It opens, swallowing the pins.
He knows for sure, the day will come
when it will swallow him.