The New Building

At first they bring out a wire screen

as if the old house were to be put down,

a fallen racehorse that cannot be seen

to die; and then there are mechanical beaks

that peck at the walls and window-frames

and unpick memories of happy weeks

or years someone once lived beneath the broken roof.

Then trucks like a funeral procession

carry away the rubble and tiles, waterproof

no more. Another mechanical jaw

comes to gouge at the earth, digging

down through layers of fossil and ore

as in an open-cut mine, before the gaping holes

are filled again by concrete poured from a hose.

Stacks of boards and planks arrive, as well as metal poles,

and for days the air is filled with a sound

that could be mistaken for a shoot-out

among gangsters, as round after round

fired from nail-guns strike the wooden beams

which are then assembled into a structure

resembling an office or prison, it seems.

Neighbours gather to comment on what they see

as an eyesore, a blot, an intrusion

on their living space, a plain monstrosity—

but their comments and complaints make no difference.

The new building grows. Cranes attend,

bowing like waiters with studied deference,

and the neighbours, who have nothing to share

except their complaints, continue to complain,

while the shadow of the new development there

spreads on the ground. Balconies

and windows are attached to the blank walls.

It is only natural that everyone agrees

in those conversations among neighbours

otherwise scarcely known to one another, and yet

as the final flourishes conclude, and the labours

are ended, I may be the only one to notice something

when the last afternoon sun has poured

over the trees to wash the new building—

in the distance it resembles a castle on a hill,

shining and white. People move in and out,

as they are living there now, so that, later still,

when I look out at night there is no monstrosity

but what seems the lights of a great ship, a clipper

or a cruise liner, afloat on a dark sea.

                             Jamie Grant