I have the harness from the carriage house
across the alley, back from when a horse
was transportation. No one needs weathered hide,
so I watch it hold its place, draped on the roof
of the dog house, a comment on a passing age.  

The cracked concrete where I sit and watch
the sun advance through trees was once
a stable and a workshop where a man could think
about the world from his perspective, free
from other plans about his time. He could feed
his family with the letterpress he kept, a library
of fonts that caught what anyone could pay for.  

The need for words remains. Orderlies chat
with janitors on a smoke break from routine.
One hammer pocks a building into permanence
without the syncopation of another man’s arms.
Jets burrow through thin air. We fill the silence
and birds filigree the margins, take our yards
into the arch of seasons. Birds and insects, people work.
I sit while everything needs done and watch for ghosts.