Under construction

I'd thought about this new path on the west side of the house

Next to the blackberry brambles that insist on growing east, lazily east

Over the river rock path that has steadily sunk, unevenly, into the dirt,

Threatening to break the ankles of the elderly in the darkness of night.

I'd thought about this new path but was waiting for the right person to show up

On a spring day, or maybe fall could work, or summer, the one who understands

The old and infirm, the vagaries of an old house that endured the indignity of 

The flood in 1894, someone who would be just the right person.

The years drifted by and the stone path became yet another bed of weeds,

The stones yet more uneven and I waited for the right person who did not 

Flinch at lifting out all the old stones and laying even flagstone, tightly 

Spaced to keep out the weeds. 

One day he appeared, his wizened face framed by the black hair of someone

From the South, from Peru, in fact, he appeared at my front gate and said he 

Could do the job, in spite of his old bones, he could make a new path

On the west side of this old house, that knew floods and hail storms.

I'd thought of this path, the one I could walk along, at night, without stumbling,

Somehow a reassurance in these unsteady times.